it’s hard to imagine the deliciousness of the tomato, probably my favorite food, among the members of the poisonous nightshade family. seriously, don’t you look at this unripe bunch of grape tomatoes and think how sweet they’ll be when they turn red? spoiler alert. they will not turn red. they will turn dark blue, and they will kill you. this branch sat for a couple of days on my front passenger seat, next to my beloved dog, until i realized what it was. the incident reminded me of that time when our daughter was about two years old, and we stayed at a friend’s cabin in northern minnesota. we were gathering some local wildflowers to press and photograph, including what we thought was a beautiful spray of cow parsnip. when we finally identified the plant positively, we realized that the spray of greenery lying on the table right next to our angelically napping daughter was in fact water hemlock. the first line of the description in our wildflower book went as follows: “water hemlock: this is one of the most deadly poisonous plants in the u.s. to both humans and animals.” we felt pretty proud of ourselves that day.

nightshade

saint paul, minnesota