There are no berries in our forests! Red, blue, black, yellow, various. The red berry of any plant is always appetizing in appearance. Bright, beautiful, with a glossy barrel, it hangs on a branch between green leaves. The hand reaches out to pick it up and put it in your mouth. But be careful! Not all red berries are safe. There are among them ruthless poisoners, eating which, you can pay with your life. Wonderful plants gave us nature. These are raspberries, strawberries, rose hips, cranberries, viburnum, lemongrass, lingonberries and many others. Their red berries are known to everyone and, perhaps, everyone knows about their benefits. They are used to make jams and compotes, bake pies and prepare tinctures, they are eaten raw and successfully used in medicine. But in the forest clearings you can find no less beautiful red berries that need to be avoided. The people dubbed them "wolf", although each of them has its own name.
Honeysuckle
This ornamental shrub is most often referred to as wolfberries. It is found not only in forests throughout almost all of Russia, it is also planted as a hedge. AtHoneysuckle has pretty pretty cream, white, or pink flowers that bees love. Among the many varieties of this plant, there are edible ones.
Their fruits are slightly elongated, dark blue or almost purple. In real honeysuckle, or forest, or ordinary, in question, the fruit is a red berry. It is small in size, spherical, very juicy, bright, shiny, perfectly decorates the bush. Often two berries grow together in pairs. Children mistake them for red currants. The berries of real honeysuckle taste bitter, so you won’t eat a lot of them, but it’s better not to try. No deaths have been reported after consuming a small amount of inedible honeysuckle. But those who have tasted these berries may experience poisoning with fever, stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, and impaired stool.
Lily of the valley
This delicate fragrant flower, which delights us in spring, is unusually poisonous. The fruit of the lily of the valley is a round red berry, located on a stalk on thin, slightly curved stalks. Lily of the valley grows almost everywhere - in deciduous, coniferous and mixed forests, in oak forests, in gardens and flower beds. He especially likes edges and clearings with fairly moist soil.
Berries stay on the plant for a long time. They pose a particular danger to animals. People are rarely poisoned by them. The poison contained in all parts of the flower is called convallatoxin. Once in the body, it can cause cardiac arrest. In those who have eaten a small amount of berries, allsigns of food poisoning. It is noteworthy that even the water in which there are lilies of the valley becomes poisonous. But in strictly fixed doses, the plant is used in official medicine to treat heart diseases. Traditional medicine uses lily of the valley much more widely, for example, for rheumatism, headaches, eye diseases.
Deadly wolfberry
Wolf's bast, badhovets, wolfberry - all this is the same shrub with red berries. You can see it in the forests of Russia up to the Arctic zone. It blooms earlier than other trees and shrubs, decorating the edges already in March. Its berries are bright, juicy, very beautiful, about the size of a cherry stone.
They contain poisonous juice, which, if it gets on the skin and mucous membranes, causes itching, redness, inflammation. Symptoms of poisoning are similar to those that occur with gastroenteritis. All parts of the wolfberry are poisonous. They contain a large number of substances dangerous to humans - diterpenoids, coumarins, daphnin, miserein, coccognin and others. Wolfberry is planted as an ornamental plant and in gardens. Avicenna used it in his recipes. Folk healers use this plant externally, in the form of decoctions and tinctures for rheumatism, gout, tonsillitis, dermatosis, toothache and many other diseases, but it is officially forbidden to use it for medicinal purposes.
Marsh calla
This very beautiful graceful plant is commonly known as calla. It is grown with pleasure in flower beds, used in bouquets. ATIn nature, calla can be found where there is sufficient moisture. It grows in the European part of Russia, and in Siberia, and in the Far East. All parts of it are poisonous. Calla flowers are small and inconspicuous, collected in yellow cobs. Decorates them with a white veil, taken by many for a large petal.
The fruit of the plant is a red berry, somewhat reminiscent of a large stemmed mulberry. Calla juice causes irritation and inflammation of the skin, and if it enters the stomach, nausea, vomiting, convulsions, heart rhythm disturbances appear. Pets are often poisoned with leaves and fruits of calla lilies. They begin to salivate profusely, trembling, bloating, the pulse becomes very weak, but frequent. Death without urgent action occurs within an hour. For medicinal purposes, calla rhizomes are mainly used, they are added to some dishes even after special processing.
Crow
This herbaceous plant with red berries can be found in coniferous and mixed forest belts, on marsh hummocks, on clay and rocky slopes. It is sometimes used in gardens as a flowerbed ornament, mainly because of the beautifully carved leaves. The crow has many other names, including bed bugs (because of an unpleasant smell), stink, Christopher's grass, again wolf berries. Voronets blooms in May-June. In place of small white flowers that stay on the stem for only a couple of days, berries appear.
Depending on the species, they may not beonly red, but also white and black. There are up to two dozen of them on the stalk. They are also small, round, shiny, reminiscent of a small cluster of grapes and very attractive to look at. All parts of the crow are poisonous. When ingested, people experience nausea with vomiting, severe pain in the abdomen, convulsions, clouding of consciousness.
Aronnik
The appearance of the flower, this plant resembles a calla, only its cover is not white, but dirty green-purple, similar to decaying meat. The smell is about the same. This is necessary for the plant to attract carrion and dung flies - its only pollinators. But the fruit of the aronnik is quite nice.
On an upright stem, its bright, shiny red berries look unusually attractive. The photo shows that they form something like an ear and look like beads stuck to one another. They are poisonous only when fresh. Dried berries are used in folk medicine to treat bronchitis, hemorrhoids and some other diseases. Aronnik grows almost throughout Europe and Asia. It can be seen on river banks, meadows, pastures, in thickets of bushes and on rocky mountain slopes.
Bittersweet Nightshade
There are about 1000 species in the nightshade family. Poisonous is the one in which the variety of berries is red. Black berries are quite edible, they even make jams, compotes, and bake pies. There is a nightshade in many regions of Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus. Grows like a weed. Some gardeners plant it to decorate fences andhedges.
The fruits of the nightshade are bright red, slightly elongated, reminiscent of greatly reduced clusters of cherry tomatoes. Alkaloids, steroids, carotonoids, triterpenoids were found in their pulp and bones. The taste of nightshade berries is sweet at first, but then bitterness is felt in the mouth. In case of poisoning, coordination of movement is disturbed, the heartbeat quickens, abdominal pains appear.
Elderberry red
Walking in the second half of summer along the edge of the forest or in the park, you can see a sprawling shrub, decorated with lush berry tassels. This is elderberry. Just don't confuse it with black edible.
This type of elderberry does not mean at all that it has not yet ripened. It's just a completely different species of the same plant family. Red elderberry is very beautiful, so it is willingly cultivated to decorate alleys, parks and squares. Its berries are a bit like rowan brushes, but the leaves and the plant itself are completely different. Birds eat its red berries with pleasure, but for humans they are poisonous due to the presence of amygdalin in them, as it turns into hydrocyanic acid in his stomach. In small doses, red elderberry berries are used in traditional medicine as a medicine. Important: It has already been proven that red elderberry does not save you from cancer.
Euonymus
Probably, many will be interested in the name of a red berry of a very unusual type - bright, juicy, with black dotted eyes. This is a warty euonymus. Its fruits have a rather pleasant taste, so they are eagerly pecked by forest birds.
People seeing this might think the berries are safe. But the euonymus is poisonous, and all parts of this beautiful plant are dangerous. Symptoms of poisoning with attractive berries are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions, general weakness, disruption of the heart. Euonymus grows in broad-leaved groves, forests, loves oak forests and places with lime-rich soils. In settlements, it can be seen in the form of a living spectacular hedge.
What to do in case of poisoning
Some authors give recommendations on how to recognize whether berries are poisonous or not. One of the main signs of safety is the use of berries for food by birds and animals. However, focusing on this, you can pay with your life. So, birds, without the slightest harm to themselves, eat berries of the euonymus, elderberry, nightshade, honeysuckle and other poisonous plants. To avoid trouble, you need to be guided by another rule - if you don’t know what the red berry is called and what it is, it’s better not to touch it. According to statistics, berry poisoning is more common among children. Adults should explain to them which berries grow in their area. If, however, poisoning has occurred, before the ambulance arrives, you need to wash the victim's stomach, give adsorbents to drink and ensure peace.
