Leafless asparagus
Asparagus aphyllus
Family · Asparagaceae · Irritating
Portugal's commonest wild asparagus, a hard spiny shrub of Mediterranean scrub whose spring shoots have been gathered for centuries.
Scrubland · Montado · Walls and rocks · Dunes and sand
Also known aswild asparagus
How to tell it
A stiff, much branched shrub with no true leaves: what look like needles are cladodes, transformed branches, clustered in bunches and ending in a sharp point. Minute hanging yellow-green flowers in autumn. Red berries in winter. The young shoots rise straight from the ground in spring.
What it is confused with
Wild asparagus
Asparagus acutifolius
They are very alike and the shoots of both are eaten. This one's cladodes are larger, stiffer and fewer per cluster; acutifolius has very fine ones in dense clusters of ten or more. Neither is dangerous.
Open sheet →What it is for
The spring shoots are a living tradition all over the south, boiled or in omelette, more bitter than the garden asparagus. The red berries are not eaten. As in any gathering, away from roads and treated ground, and never pulling up the stock, which takes years to recover.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.