Actaea rubra / red baneberry

Adjectives: clonal, fragrant, native, poisonous, toxic, understory

Also known as: chinaberry

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Red baneberry is a deciduous perennial herb growing from a caudex just below the soil surface. It grows to about 2 feet tall, although along streams it may be higher. Look for it in open woods, especially understories and shady areas with moist, rich soils… like along streams. Its presence in the valley is somewhat limited by the soils – alkaline soils are not its favorite. The plants flower in spring and early summer.

In late summer and autumn, the plants are quite visible because of their red, or sometimes, white berries. The white form is easily distinguished from, say, snowberry, by the size and shape of their leaves. It seems like this should be called “white baneberry”, but that is an entirely different species found in the eastern part of the country. The white berried plants we have here are red baneberry, “forma neglects.”

In botany, a “form” (or forma, in Latin, abbreviated f.) usually designates a group with a noticeable morphological deviation. Although there may be many possible variations, only a few, really major ones will get names. In this case, a form of a red-berried plant that has white berries gets the honor, and because it is somewhat weird, I’ve included that name here.

Baneberry leaves are large, coarsely toothed (serrated) and have deeply lobed margins. Each leaf has 3 leaflets and each stem will have two or three leaves arranged alternately. On the lower leaf surfaces, the veins are commonly hairy. From above, they are very prominent.

Regardless of the forma, the red baneberry inflorescences are large clusters of teeny (1/4-inch across) white flowers. The clusters are short, thick and round, and grow from leaf axils or at the stem termini. They look like a bottle-brush, if that means anything to you. The flowers have a rose-like fragrance. Each individual flower has 3 to 5 petal-like, oval sepals, also white, that remain after flowering. The petals – numbering 4 to 10 – are deciduous and fall away after flowering. Each flower has numerous white stamens, giving the inflorescence a fluffy or feathery or spider-like appearance.

After flowering, ellipsoid green berries are produced. In mid to late summer, the berries turn bright red, or in the case of f. neglecta, white. The berries have a black dot on them, the remains of the stigma. Baneberry berries are poisonous to humans, but not to the birds that feast on them and excrete (and disperse) the seeds. Some small mammals eat the seeds after stripping the pulpy bit (pericarp). Interestingly, berry consumption varies with time of day; white berries are consumed more at night than red ones. Despite the toxicity, accidental poisonings are rare because they would require one to get past the extremely bitter taste first.

People do actually grow red baneberry intentionally in their gardens. If you want to do that, it is probably best to buy a plant since the seeds require dormancy, and take at least 2 years to germinate.