Nature's Bounty

[caper_est]

(This poem is brought to you courtesy of one too many forage enthusiasts being Wrong on the Internet about the merits of nomming on random bits of black nightshade, which totally hasn't killed them yet - how do you like them beans, Mr Fancypants So-Called Expert!?!?) Nature's Bounty

The food we find in hedge and ditch
Is not to everybody's taste

Comments

[khiemtran]

Funnily enough, I have eaten the fruit of a nightshade, just not a deadly nightshade. Tasted a bit like tomato (as you might expect, given the close relationship...)

[caper_est]

Oh! What kind?

Over here we have Deadly (which I've never seen); Enchanter's (which isn't even slightly related, and doesn't resemble one either); Woody or Bittersweet (very pretty, and less poisonous than Deadly); and Black. Black is a whole rather uniform-looking species complex with a global mess of cultivars, some actually bred and apparently safe for human consumption. The rest... Well, they don't usually kill healthy adults!

I met my first black nightshade in person just a couple of weeks ago: it looked rather like some large and perverted potato. Now some joker has drenched the whole plot it grew on with some very obnoxious chemical indeed, and it and all its friends are very sad. Pah!

[khiemtran]

Apparently, it's called "blackberry nightshade", although that might just mean black nightshade with black berries. See http://khiemtran.livejournal.com/350202.html .