Poisonous fruit in the garden

A lot of popular garden plants contain substances harmful to our health.

Daphne mezereum Linne, fot. source

Picking the fruit of these plants is especially dangerous for children. Usually the poisonous fruit look pretty, colourful and appetizing. They look tasty but even a very small bit of them can be dangerous for the health or life of children. Children have to be warned against picking such poisonous fruit and putting fragments of wild and decorative plants in their mouth.

Examples of such poisonous berries:

Daphne (Daphne mezereum)

It is the most popular. It blossoms in our gardens very early, in the beginning of spring. You can meet it growing wild in the mountainous regions of Poland. The fruit look beautiful - shiny, red, sweet-sour. Birds like to eat them, especially the thrushes, but when eaten by humans they cause mucosal inflammation, neck pain, muscle contractions and colic. In the case of children, eating a few fruit may cause death.

Laburnum (commonly called Golden Chain)

It is an impressive bush or a tree with beautiful, yellow flowers. Not only the flowers are poisonous, but most of the toxic cytosine is in the seeds of this plant. Eating them can cause violent vomiting, contractions and breathing disorders. The lethal dose for children is just between ten and twenty seeds.

Juniperus sabina (Savin Juniper or Savin)

A not very demanding conifer, common in our gardens. all of its parts contain a poisonous essential oil. It has blue fruit, eating which results in vomiting, stomach and bowels inflammation or even death.

Juniperus virginiana (Red Cedar, Eastern Juniper)

Poisonous but a little less dangerous. Only its fruit can be used as a spice.

Castor oil plant (Riccinus comunis)

A one-year plans - blossoms from July till autumn. In favourable soil conditions it can grow up to 2-3m. The leaves and fruit are valued for their decorativeness. The seeds of castor oil plant contain a lot of castor oil - it is one of the most vegetable poisons. Castor oil causes burning in the mouth, vertigo and diarrhoea. Eating ten to twenty seeds(in the case of children only a few) may cause death.

Taxus (Taxus baccata)

In Poland it has a form of a bush - it grows well in shadowy places. Unfortunately the plant contains a poisonous alkaloid - taxane. The red pulp of the berries doesn't have it but the seed is highly toxic. Only the female bushes have fruit. The male variants doesn't have fruit.

Holly (flex)

People like it's evergreen leaves and shiny red fruit. It's fruit are eaten by birds but when people eat them, they can cause a lot of health troubles. Their alkaloids cause vomiting, diarrhoea and nephritis. If a child eats 20-30 of these colourful berries, it can even lead to death. It's a dioecious species. The fruit are produced by the female trees only if at least one male grows nearby.

Parthenocissus

it has a few varieties. Honey can be made of it's fruits. It blossoms at the end of June and beginning of July. The fruit is a berry - black or dark blue, with bluish layer. Tasty for birds, poisonous for humans.

Other poisonous fruit

A strongly toxic plant is Belladonna (Atropa belladonna). It grows wildly in forests and brushwood. The fruit ripen from July till November. Even eating a few berries can be fatal. Sorbus aucuparia, a popular plant with beautiful fruit is also dangerous if we consume the berries raw. Even the aromatic lily of the valley, at the end of summer, gives round poisonous orange-red fruit.

Both small children as well as the older ones should be warned to these poisonous "berries".

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