Consider-the-Lilies Web Gallery
Woody Nightshade
This unusual wildflower vine, also called Climbing Nightshade, was found sprawling along a small stream in rural Augusta County, Virginia, in the same damp habitat favored by Turtle Head.
In fact, I was looking for some more Turtle Head plants when I came upon this exotic beauty. Although this bushy vine does not grow much above ground level, the shape and bright colors of these tiny blossoms made it hard to miss against the lush greens of the other undergrowth in this marshy area.
But, it was not for the otherworldly beauty of this flowering vine that led to its being imported from Great Britain by the first colonists.
Indeed, probably the delicate lavender and gold blossom was appreciated more as a flag to make the vine easier to find, than as a pretty wildflower .
This was simply because, as a carryover from European folk medicine, this flowering herb was the sovereign medicine for treatment of felons—no, not that kind: I mean abscesses of the tissues around the finger nail.
The high value placed on this plant for treatment of this ailment led to another name: Felonwort . (The word "wort" is from the Middle English for "plant," which was originally "wyrt" in Anglo-Saxon.) Felonwort, then, is simply the Middle English name for "felon" + "plant."
These infections were also called "whitlows," which led to the naming of another herb, Whitlow Grass also used in the treatment of these painful infections.
It was dubbed Woody Nightshade by European herbalists to distinguish it from the more potent and dangerous Deadly Nightshade.
This plant does, however, share one of the properties of its more dangerous namesake: chemical elements found in it can act as a mild calming, sedative. (Thus the botanic name: Solanum dulcamara with the prefix, Solanum for Solor or "I ease.")
It is also called Bittersweet, because when its dried twigs are chewed for this calming effect, the first taste is bitter.
But, then this sour, alkaline element, diluted by the chewers salvia, is overcome by a sweet taste, as a sugar from the plant's inner tissues is released.
(Botanic suffix, dulcamara from the Latin amar for "bitter" and dulcis for "sweet" combined for "bittersweet")
Beyond medicinal uses, in olden times, travelers would hang Felonwort garlands around their necks as a charm against malevolent spirits and other evils of the road.
Keats in his Ode on Melancholy references this ancient belief in the dual physical and metaphysical attributes of this flowering herb:
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine...
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul....
In late October here in the Shenandoah Valley, the green Woody Nightshade berry changes to a bright red, giving us
a sign, like the "ruby grape of Proserpine" in Greek myth, that the cycle of the seasons continues, and that soon the
flora in this shady glade will complete their life cycle and die back: these lilies of the field will rest.
But, by God's grace, with the warm breezes of May, Woody Nightshade will put out fresh growth.
Before long these delicate lavender and gold blossoms will once again beautify the bank of this quiet stream.
Go to the Main Directory to consider more lilies of the field.