Bittersweet Nightshade

Bittersweet nightshade is a scrambling, partly woody perennial vine in the same genus as the potato and the tomato. It is native to Europe, northern Africa and eastern Asia and has spread far beyond, North America included, favouring damp ground, hedges and the edges of woods. Its leaves are roughly arrow-shaped, frequently with lobes at the base; small purple, star-like flowers with a jutting yellow centre hang in loose sprays, and the oval berries ripen from green through orange to red. The name records a taste said to turn from bitter to sweet, and the medieval Latin Amara dulcis means the same. Herbalists have prized the plant since Theophrastus, and Grieve notes that its dried young twigs stayed in the British Pharmacopoeia until 1907. In Britain and Ireland it was hung on cattle and horses against witchcraft and the evil eye, and Culpeper, who gives it to Mercury, says it rids both people and animals of witchcraft. In magical practice a small piece is tied on to guard against evil and draw it out, a little laid under the pillow helps a person forget a former love, and its berries serve spells of release and of remembrance at Samhain.