As Halloween approaches, photos of Doll's Eyes seem to be everywhere.  Apparently it has a haunting look with its white, black-spotted berries on bright red stems. In Riley Sager's Home Before Dark not only is the haunted house called Baneberry Hall but poisonous baneberries comprise the bulk of the surrounding vegetation.  Creepy!
 
     All that aside, Doll's Eyes is a great shade-loving perennial with stark, white berries featuring a black spot (eye) on bright red stalks often persisting until the first frost.
 
     In spring its lovely clusters of fragrant, white blooms curiously contain only pollen, no nectar.  Short-tongued bees, wasps, flies and beetles feed on the pollen.
 
     Ruffed Grouse, Robins and several other bird species eat the berries as do mice, moles and other small mammals.
 
     Doll's Eyes thrives best in dappled sunlight with moist, well drained soils.  It is long-lived, self-seeding and easy to care for.  The flowers emit a musky fragrance.