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prettygoodwordbaneberry - n., any of several perennial herbs of the genus Actaea (in the buttercup family) with large compound leaves, spikes of small white flowers, and acrid poisonous red or white berries; one of the berries.
Also called bugbane, but that really isn't as interesting. Native to northern temperate regions. So called from around 1750 because it's poisonous -- bane being from a right old Anglo-Saxon root bana, meaning slayer (as in Beowulf Grendelsbane), now used in the original sense only in combinations such as this and wolfsbane, its other uses being somewhat diluted ("the bane of my existence"). Here, have some pictures. The white ones are especially striking.
---L.
Also called bugbane, but that really isn't as interesting. Native to northern temperate regions. So called from around 1750 because it's poisonous -- bane being from a right old Anglo-Saxon root bana, meaning slayer (as in Beowulf Grendelsbane), now used in the original sense only in combinations such as this and wolfsbane, its other uses being somewhat diluted ("the bane of my existence"). Here, have some pictures. The white ones are especially striking.
---L.
