Winter cherry

Description

Perennial herb, smooth throughout, with one to several slender unbranched stems, 12 - 20 inches long, rising from a blackish woody caudex. Leaves 0.4 - 1 inch long, alternate, spirally arranged around the stem, widest above the middle with rounded or pointed tips, dark green above, pale green and conspicuously veined below, sessile. Flowers long-stalked, nodding, in leaf axils, with 6 small, pale green sepals and no petals; female flowers much larger than male flowers. Fruit rounded and flattened on both ends, with persistent calyx.