White Baneberry

The White Baneberry (Actaea pachypoda) or commonly known as Dolls Eyes has fantastic coloring of the berry.  This forest plant is very interesting to me because the berries are poisonous to only humans, producing a glycoside, which if eaten can have an immediate sedative effect and can lead to death.  Birds find the berries harmless and eat and disperse the seed.  I love how this plant realized that its biggest threat in the future would be humans.  In protection against humans, it produced a toxin to deter us from consuming them.  Other plants wish they would have been equipped with such a brilliant strategy too.