There are some berries i found along my driveway in western Mass. I have no idea of what they could be. The berries are attached to that small plant in the picture though. i could not find them in my field guide. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
Could be smilax, but these don't have the smooth dark green leaves that i think most have. These plants are only about a foot high. Nor do i see any flowers. Maybe i will have to wait to see if the carrion flower shows up, do you know when that will be by any chance? Thank you so much for the help so far.
It's hard to tell from the photos, but it reminds me a little of one of MY mystery plants from last year. Could it be American Spiknard? http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/araliarace.html
Brybry, actually it was a few leaves I saw in your photos that made me think of Smilax. Not the leaves that are most dominant in your third picture. I thought the leaves of the third picture were not even the ones that go with the berries. The ones that look like smilax leaves to me are the more oval ones that are a little shiny and there are only a few of them. Does this plant have some thorns? If I remember correctly, Smilax has thorns--at least the species I grew up around in western Tennessee woods did (I think). If the plants already have berries, you are unlikely to see flowers again this year. You probably already missed the flowers from this plant. You see, the berries are the fruit of the plant and form from within the flowers. So first you get flowers, then you get berries.
The branch with berries are definitely attached to the larger plants in the picture, not the shiny small leaves you see close to the ground. The berry-branch joins the light green leaves branch close to the base. The base is a thicker tuber-like root. There are no thorns at all. Hope this helps, i am really interested now.
I think it could be American Spikenard, you're from Ontario so i suppose it could grow around here, too. There are definately resemblances, but the pictures on the site you give are larger - almost tree-like. Mine are small and dinky. Maybe i will have to wait a year and see if they get to that size. Thanks.