What a difference a few weeks makes! The once green plant with small purple flowers and green berries is now an eerie looking purple leaved woody branch with a few red berries. Very Halloween – Sleepy Hollow looking! If I knew nothing about this plant other than my field observations, my heart would tell me that you don’t want to ingest any part of it!

Found an interesting site from the University of PA. At the bottom of the page it has ‘Tox Factoid’ info about potatoes (also in the nightshade family). It says……. ordinary potatoes, if grown too close to the soil surface, will develop a green skin due to sun exposure. The green skin (in addition to young sprouts) can contain harmful glycoalkaloids. Green tissue should be removed from potatoes before eating.

Egads! I’ve purchased bags of ‘taters from time to time that had green spuds in them. Didn’t like the looks of them either but, I do think I peeled all the green away…. I hope……..