Moth plant
Araujia sericifera
Family · Apocynaceae · Poisonous
Read this before the sheet
This plant, or one that resembles it, is dangerous. Identifying is not authorising: no app has the authority to tell you that you may eat or touch a plant.
Emergency
The white-latex climber that traps moths by the tongue inside the flower and leaves them there to die. It makes large heart-shaped fruits full of seeds with silky plumes.
Town and roadside · Roadsides and waste ground · Streams and ditches · Scrubland
Also known ascruel plant, bladder flower
How to tell it
A vigorous climber with opposite triangular leaves, dark green above and white beneath, releasing sticky white latex when broken. White or cream bell-shaped flowers, sweetly scented at night. A large green heart or pear-shaped fruit that splits and releases hundreds of silky-haired seeds.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
None
The latex is irritant and causes dermatitis and eye injury, and the plant is toxic. It is an aggressive invader that smothers whole trees. The name comes from the flower's mechanism, which clamps a moth's tongue and releases it only if it can tear itself free, often leaving it trapped until it dies.
The law says
A listed invasive alien species in Portugal. Do not plant it, propagate it or carry the fruits.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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