Plant with white fruits (northern MN native)

I found this plant growing on my land in Silver Bay, MN (Arrowhead region; pretty far north) last week. It has white fruits that look a lot like white baneberry (Actaea pachypoda) but the leaves are all wrong for baneberry, and the fruits aren't growing in a raceme on thick pink stemlets, as does baneberry. The leaves look like blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), but the fruits don't look at all like blue cohosh--and blue cohosh officially doesn't grow in northern MN. White baneberry does, indeed, grow in this location, and in fact there were several white baneberry plants very near to this.

I took the photo from the side so you can see the growth habit; it splits off in several compound leaves, just like baneberry and cohosh do. The darn thing looks like a cross between white baneberry and blue cohosh!

Any ideas?

Teresa

The USDA does show blue cohosh growing in your region, and sometimes before they ripen the berries are white, but I'm pretty sure those are not blue cohosh berries. Blue cohosh berries don't grow up along the stem like these, they don't have the dark "eye" like the photo, and they don't have the groove that the berries in the photo have. Are you sure this is one plant? It could be the leaves from blue cohosh and the berries from baneberry. Or it could be baneberry with a slightly unusual leaf form. They leaves aren't very far from what you'd expect baneberry to look like.

Hi 16blue--

Yes, it is one plant... I was so curious about it that I spent a lot of time poking and prodding it. I can see where one of the stems was cut off, either by our weed whip earlier in the season or by a deer, by the way, so it probably had a more branching habit than what is shown. I agree that the cleft in the fruit looks nothing like blue cohosh. It probably is a mutant white baneberry.... but, there are white baneberry not 5 feet from this and they don't look a thing like it! I appreciate the response; looks like this one is stumping a lot of folks (including me).

I'll attach another shot of it... the original one was more probitive, but this might be of interest.

Teresa

Teresa, try collecting the berries when they are fully ripe and growing some additional plants and/or providing some to a bonanical garden to attempt propagation. I believe that there is such an instution in the Twin Cities area. They may be able to assist in the ID even now. Really good mysteries should be shared.

Caulophyllum thalictroides has been documented by Olga Lakela in her book A Flora of Northeastern Minnesota. But I don't think it's that.

You've certainly piqued my interest. I have a cabin just south of the Canadian border near Ely. If I could have your permission to copy your photos, I'll email them to a botany professor friend of mine in northern Wisconsin. I'll bet he will know.

Rick

Hi Rick--

Certainly, please feel free to e-mail the photos to your botany professor friend. I double-checked the USDA Plants database, and it does, indeed, show Caulophyllum thalictroides in Lake County (which is where this was taken). But I'm very familiar with blue cohosh, and other than a resemblance of the leaves, there was not much else similar; the fruit was entirely unlike blue cohosh.

Please post if your friend has any ideas. I will be headed up there again in a few weeks, and hope to find the fruit remnants so I can try to plant it and cultivate it, as suggested by greenthumb99. It certainly is a mystery at this point!

Teresa

The botany professor says it is Actaea pachypoda. And I looked at the picks on file here and the berries do have a cleft. So I think the mystery is solved.

Rick

Hi Rick--

Yes, the berries do indeed look like Actaea pachypoda (white baneberry)... but the leave don't! Apparently the leaves can be somewhat variable. Thanks for checking; I will be up there in a few weeks and will try to check that plant again and perhaps grow some of its seed next year. If I get a viable specimen growing next year, I will post another photo. Interesting!

Teresa