What is "dulcamara"

Bittersweet \Bit"ter*sweet`\, n.

1. Anything which is bittersweet.

2. A kind of apple so called.
   --Gower.

3. (Bot.)

   1. A climbing shrub, with oval coral-red berries ( Solanum dulcamara); woody nightshade. The whole plant is poisonous, and has a taste at first sweetish and then bitter. The branches are the officinal dulcamara.

   2. An American woody climber ( Celastrus scandens), whose yellow capsules open late in autumn, and disclose the red aril which covers the seeds; -- also called Roxbury waxwork.

Dulcamara means "bittersweet" (literally "sweet-bitter"). It can refer to:

• Solanum dulcamara, a plant
• Dulcamara, a synonym and proposed section of the genus Solanum
• Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack, a 1866 play by W. S. Gilbert
• Dr. Dulcamara, a character in L'elisir d'amore, an opera by Gaetano Donizetti