woody nightshade

American  

noun

1. bittersweet.

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woody nightshade British  

noun

1. Also called: bittersweet.  a scrambling woody Eurasian solanaceous plant, Solanum dulcamara, having purple flowers with recurved petals and a protruding cone of yellow anthers and producing poisonous red berry-like fruits

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Etymology

Origin of woody nightshade

First recorded in 1570–80

Example Sentences

Then a hedgerow with woody nightshade and long blue vetch; then the green night of a little wood.

From Doctor Cupid by Broughton, Rhoda

In some places the light and tender-leaved woody nightshade, whose berries in bunches of crimson and green are so pretty in autumn, impart a spring-like appearance to this hedgerow.

From The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan by Stables, Gordon

The green and crimson berries on the former, when the summer begins to wane, are rivalled only by those of the charming woody nightshade.

From The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan by Stables, Gordon

The woody nightshade they knew very well, having been warned long ago against the berries.

From Bevis The Story of a Boy by Jefferies, Richard