Any idea what this is?

PotterWatch

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I found this growing in a viney way alongside one of my pumpkin vines. I have no clue what it might be.

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vfem

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Looks like some type of nightshade plant.... I'd bet its probably poisonous so be careful.
 

aquarose

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I say nightshade too, although it is slightly different from the nightshade in my yard, which has purple and yellow flowers and a slightly more oval berry.
 

hoodat

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It looks like deadly nightshade but don't let the name throw you. Only the tops are poisonous and then not all that deadly. Birds eat the berries.
 

PotterWatch

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Well, I'm glad I didn't give it to my chickens anyway. Thanks for the id!
 

hoodat

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PotterWatch said:
Well, I'm glad I didn't give it to my chickens anyway. Thanks for the id!
Try not to let any of it grow. It harbors many pests and diseases that can spread to other plants in that family which include tomatos, peppers and eggplant.
 

Whitewater

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Around here, we call that da, er, *darn* thing Buckthorn and it is an invasive weed!!!! Get rid of it by any and all means necessary including fire, because once you have it, it WILL spread and choke out *everything*, good plants, weeds, grass, EVERYTHING.

Wild birds and rabbits eat the seeds which then get pooped out of them and that's how the plant spreads.

To get rid of it without burning it, pull it up (and make VERY sure you got ALL the root), put it in a double garbage bag, tie the bag closed, and throw it away. That makes sure the berries can't get spread.

Buckthorn is the single instance where I would use a strong non-organic weedkiller in my garden. It's terrible, 'bout as bad as kudzu up north, and like I said, once you have it, there's no hope -- you won't ever be able to have a buckthorn-free garden again, you will have to move from eradication to management.

Many of the communities around here actually have specific community-building type 'Buckthorn Pulling Days' in which people get together, bring their gardening gloves and hats, and pull and bag the buckthorn.

My condolences, I hope you don't have a ton of those plants!

(And I have no idea if buckthorn is part of the nighshade family, I wouldn't put it past it though!!!)


Whitewater
 

patandchickens

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It's definitely NOT buckthorn (although the berries are similar) -- buckthorn is a shrub/tree (woody plant), and the leaves are different.

I'm going with one of the nightshades too -- b/c of the berries -- even though the ones we have here locally, since I don't have clear recollections of other ones I've met over the years, have different leaves than that.

You could tell for sure if it were flowering: nightshade flowers are basically sstructured like tomato or potato flowers although sometimes a different color scheme.

Pat
 

chickcritty

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It looks like what we have growing all over our vegetable garden. Look up wonderberry. It is in the nightshade family and supposedly the berries are edible once ripe, but poisonous when unripe. I think people mainly use the berries to make jam. I'm scared to try them though in case I've misidentified them! I usually just pull them out when I see them. They're very easy to pull out of the ground.
 

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