A tangled, high-climbing vine. Stem round, smooth, brown. Flowers small, green, and clustered. Fruits orange clustered pods that open to reveal scarlet seed coverings. Fruits September - December.
Wood edges, fencerows, thickets.
Bittersweet fruits are eaten by songbirds, ruffed grouse, pheasant, and fox squirrel. In the dark and superstitious past, shepherds hung bittersweet around the necks of those sheep which were suspected to be under the evil eye. Linnaeus believed that bittersweet could be used as a cure for rheumatism, fever, and other inflammatory diseases.