Blue Bead Lily
We found these plants with clusters of blue berries in the woods behind our house on August 4, 2024.
The fruit clusters were at the end of a thin stem about 4 to 6 inches long, and the individual fruits were about the size of a pea. They also had a prominent dimple at the berry tip, where presumably the blossom used to be.
This appears to be one of the Clintonia lilies, which is a genus of wild lilies found all across northern North America and parts of northern Asia. There are several species that have berries that look like this, so a really positive ID would need me to find them again during blooming season to see what the flowers look like. They are likely to be Clintonia_borealis, though, since (a) we are well within the growing range of this plant, and (b) I am pretty sure I have seen those yellow blossoms in about the same place where we found these berries.
These plants grow in very shaded areas, sometimes so shaded that other plants can’t take hold, which makes them resistant to being pushed out by invasive plants. So, at least here, they are not considered to be in any danger.
While they do have blue berries, they are emphatically not the edible blueberries that we cultivate to eat. The Clintonia berries aren’t poisonous, exactly, but they are reported to be “unpleasant to eat” and can “cause gastric distress”, so let them be. There are apparently also variants of this plant where the berries are white. Don’t eat those, either.