Hi there, In May of this year we had our sweet baby girl. SO, our garden went completely wild over the summer, with the exception of 2 squash plants that I left to forage for themselves among the many weeds (they did great!). As I was cleaning up the disaster that my garden was this summer, I noticed a grapey type vine. I had never seen any type of berry-weed in my garden before, so I was immediately excited. From my google searching I think it may be elderberry or porcelain berry... but the unique berries (when crushed) have me second guessing. It has grape-type leaves (from as much as I know) but no tendrils for climbing. The vines are woody with three pointy ridges that run longwise down the vine, past all the berry clusters. The berry clusters have one central stalk (that is not very thick) and from it stem anywhere from 2 to 5 blue berries (all the stems are about 1/2 inch long). The berries are evenly distributed in a star-like pattern. The berries themselves are what really puzzle me about this plant. They connect to their stems with a star-like attachment (not like a real grocery store grape, where the stem goes right into the grape... there is a frilly little collar around the stem at the point of attachment). When crushed, they are a bright green applesauce consistency. The whole insides are peppered with atleast 100 little white seeds with a grape-like round pulp in the center. The berries are about 1/2 in wide. I found another one of these baby plants about 10 feet away from the large one. It was easy to rip up, so I'm guessing (and hoping) it is from a separate seed and not from an underground root system. We live in Suburbia, so I don't know how such a weird plant could have come to my sterile little garden! Bird dropped it off, maybe? That is about as well as I can describe it... I'm hoping we can label it as something non-invasive! Thanks so much for reading this, I've been a lurker on this site for a while. :)
Black Nightshade (Solanum nigrum): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanum_nigrum Make sure to remove it from your garden before you baby girl start inspecting it.
