Solanum nigrum

Solanum nigrum

We were taking care of a friend's pets while they were on vacation, and they invited us to pick their "blackberries and huckleberries" while they were gone. The blackberries were excellent, but we had just returned from picking huckleberries in Wyoming, and my daughter immediately remarks that, "these don't look like huckleberries." They were little black berries growing in clusters, and the nearby flowers were clearly from the Nightshade family (Solanaceae), which includes crops such as tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplant, as well as belladonna or deadly nightshade. These particular berries keyed out as Solanum nigrum, or Black Nightshade. After doing some research on their edibility (always be certain about what you are eating), we came back another day to pick them and found them to be very tasty eating.

The research was rather interesting on this plant, since there is some disagreement about its edibility and/or toxicity. I found common names for it ranging from poisonberry to garden huckleberry, both of which are completely misleading. It's not poisonous, and it's not in any way related to huckleberries. Trusted first-hand accounts of eating them include Green Deane of Eat the Weeds, and Sam Thayer in his book Nature's Garden.

The main problem causing confusion seems to be that belladonna (Atropa belladonna) can be mistaken for this berry. Belladonna is also a black berry in the nightshade family and is very poisonous. The berries are larger than Black nightshade, they generally grow singly instead of in clusters, and the sepals (on a tomato, they are the green bracts at the top of the tomato where it attaches to the stem) are much larger than the berry, where as Black nightshade the sepals are quite small. 

But returning to Black nightshade, the fruits themselves are quite small, like a huckleberry. They grow in clusters, though, and separate from the sepals easily. The taste is like a fruity tomato. It is sweeter than a cherry tomato, but not as sweet as a grape. It has plenty of small seeds, similar to but even smaller than tomatoes. They are not bothersome and slide down the throat easily. I enjoy the flavor a lot and would happily snack on them more often, but unfortunately they aren't found in the wild in my area. In my friend's garden, they grow quite well, and spread easily. I see them coming up in the cracks between pavers in various places in his yard.

My friend was a bit surprised when I said they were not real huckleberries. But they will continue to make pies and such things with them.