Don't eat the red berries

I can remember, as a kid, being told by adults not to eat berries from the hedgerow - especially red ones. 'Some are deadly poisonous!' they would tell me. 

As it happens, it was pretty sound advice because some are. However, there are some really tasty berries in our hedgerows and woods too.

As I've said before on this blog (most notably here and here), successful foraging is all about identification. If you're not 100% sure what something is DON'T EAT IT.  

Let me give you some examples. These look tasty don't they? They look like mini cherry tomatoes and they even grow on the vine too.

They are, in fact, related to tomatoes ... and therein lies the problem.

There's a large family of plants called the Solanaceae or, more commonly, the nightshades. The family includes Deadly Nightshade (Atropa Belladonna) which, as the name suggests, will do you no good if you eat it (Belladonna means ‘beautiful woman’ as it was used by Renaissance women to dilate their pupils and, indeed, a tincture using the plant is still used in modern medicine for the same reason). 

However, the nightshade family also includes potatoes, tomatoes, goji berries, aubergines, peppers and chillies - all edible and delicious.

Or parts of them are.

Tomatoes are delicious but the leaves, stems and roots of the plant are poisonous. Meanwhile, potato leaves and stalks are also toxic. And any green patches on a potato could be an indication of the presence of a neurotoxin called solanine which you DO NOT want to eat. 

Which brings us back to our lovely cluster of red tomato-like berries. These are Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara), also known as Woody Nightshade. They're not super toxic like the black berries of their deadly cousin , but eating them will make you ill. They have enough nasty stuff in them to cause gastric upset.

It's a minefield this foraging lark, isn't it? 

And, just to make a misidentification even more possible, these berries I spotted were growing in amongst a riot of tasty and completely edible Hawthorn berries (haws). And, not far away, there were Rowan trees, Dog Rose and Guelder Rose plants ... all of which have red and quite edible berries.

As I said at the start of this post, the secret to staying safe is identification. Get a good guide book and look for distinct and unmistakeable features such as leaf shape, stem colour etc. 

Here's a good example of that.

I spotted these yesterday. What do you think they are?

Sloes? Blackcurrants? Blueberries?

At a distance I thought they might be chokeberries (Aronia melanocarpa) which, despite their alarming name, are quite edible. However, the leaves didn't look right and closer examination revealed it to be a Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster villosulus) plant. And it's a good job I checked because Cotoneaster berries are toxic. 

Meanwhile, growing next to this plant was a wild Pheasant Berry (Leycesteria formosa) bush which also has black berries. However, these are delicious, non-toxic and taste a little like slightly burnt toffee or caramel.

The devil is in the detail so you need to get to know your stems, leaves and flowers. 

As another example, Hornbeam and Beech look very similar for much of the year. However there are subtle differences in the leaves.

The Hornbeam is on the left and, as you'll see, it has a longer tapering point and the edges of the leaf are serrated. Identification is easier in Autumn as Beech trees have Beech mast (the spiky cases that contain the nuts) and Hornbeam doesn't. Instead it has ribbed nutlets at the base of a leafy bract and the bracts hang in clusters. 

Meanwhile, Hornbeam flowers hang in 'ropes' like hops in springtime while Beech flowers hang in individual small clusters.

And in springtime the leaves of both trees look different to how they look in autumn!

Yes, it's all very complicated. 

But it needn't be dangerous if you're sensible and willing to put the hours of study in. I've been foraging for 50 years and I've not been ill yet.

And there's no reason why you should either - IF you stick to the rules.

In the meantime, DON'T EAT THE RED BERRIES unless you are absolutely 100% sure of your identification.

Simple.