Today’s Featured Flower Photo of the Day:
Purple Bittersweet Nightshade

Here is today’s featured photo flower presentation. To let the is year shine bright, I am featuring fine photos of flowers, continuing to honor the brighter side of life again this year. Today’s Flower of the day is the poisonous Purple Bittersweet Nightshade.

The Purple Bittersweet Nightshade, or the Solanum Dulcamara of the Nightshade (Solanaceae) family is a poisonous wildflower that commonly grows in north central states in calcicolous soils usually sides of roads, wild wetlands and forests, the south of US but is also found as far north as eastern Nebraska, eastern South Dakota and southern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. This perennial plant is a semi-woody vine about 2 to 8 feet long. It can become semi-erect by climbing over adjacent vegetation or fence rows, or sprawling along the ground. Stems are initially purple and slightly pubescent, or they have scattered appressed hairs. Later, they become brown and woody. These woody stems are semi-hardy and may survive some winters to produce foliage. The alternate leaves are up to 4 inches long and 2-1/2 inches across. The larger leaves have triangular outlines, and 3 deep lobes that are broadly ovate or cordate, with the terminal lobe being much larger than the side lobes. The margin of each leaf is smooth, with an upper surface that is either glabrous or having scattered appressed hairs. The terminal lobe tapers gradually into an elongated tip. The smaller leaves often lack lobes having an ovate shape, but otherwise they are quite similar to the larger leaves. The foliage exudes a rank bitter odor, particularly when the leaves or stems are damaged. Occasionally, angular clusters of 6 to 12 violet flowers are produced from the stems or the axils of the leaves. The flower buds and their branching stalks are also violet. While beautiful, the plant is a poisonous plant! The Purple Bittersweet Nightshade produces berries that are red and green towards summer into fall and even winter. Make sure these are not confused with variations at harvest time of edible varieties of fruit. The Nightshade varieties of plants are always poisonous and inedible. If ingested, please seek proper medical attention or call 9-1-1.

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Photo #4 (Fall Color View) Do Not Eat

Photos taken with a Samsung Galaxy A71 with the factory Quad camera Standard-wide: 64 MP 1/1.72-inch sensor with 0.8µm pixels and 26 mm-equivalent f/1.8 PDAF lens Ultra-wide: 12 MP sensor with f/2.2 aperture lens.

🌱 🌸 💐 ⚘ 🌷 🏵️ 🌹 🌺 🥀 💮 🌻

Another fine photograph to coming right up:
Feature photo: “Flower of the Day” ! ! !

PHOTO OF THE DAY

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