the problem of winter

the problem of winter

i walked past this stalk of berries maybe fifty times this summer, and every time i thought quietly to myself, “red baneberry” and kept walking.  then i brought some foreign stalk onto my house in winter, and the berries were a darkened wrinkled bluish, and they all fell off at the same time to reveal this beautifully graphic bottlebrush, and it took me half an hour to identify them as the quite obvious red baneberry of summer. i’ve gotten pretty good at trees, but woodland stalks in winter are strangers to me, even though they are like family for the rest of the year.

actaea rubra (red baneberry)

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