Woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara), climbing through the reserve’s hedges, is heavy with berries at this time of year.
It is a species of vine belonging to the potato family, that grows up through other plants on a strong woody stem. Woody nightshade doesn’t have tendrils with which to hold on, nor does it twist or wind itself around the supporting plants; it just sprawls and the foliage it is climbing through holds it up.
woody nightshade berries and flowers
Growing through the right kind of habitat, it can climb as high as three metres. In our main car park, it grows as high as the roses that support it, but without any support at all, it is a low growing woody shrub.
Every part of Solanum dulcamara is poisonous to humans and its toxicity is reflected in many of its common names: bittersweet, felonwort, poisonberry, snakeberry, poison flower. Birds can eat the bright red, sticky berries without apparent harm and the latest research suggests that the toxins the berries contain are a device to hurry the seeds through a bird’s digestive tract undamaged by its stomach acids.
Evolution can be very clever: hide the seeds, essential for the next generation, in a sweet sticky brightly coloured berry that will attract birds to carry the seed far away from the parent plant. But fill the berry with poison enough to make sure that the precious seed doesn’t hang around in the bird’s digestive juices long enough to be damaged. Smart!
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 