Azores viburnum
Viburnum treleasei
Family · Viburnaceae · Poisonous
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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 Azorean viburnum, an evergreen shrub with corymbs of white flowers and glossy metallic blue berries. It is a cousin of mainland laurustinus and shares its warning.
Oak woods · Scrubland · Uplands
Also known asAzorean laurustinus
How to tell it
Opposite, oval, leathery glossy leaves, paler and hairless beneath, with a smooth edge. Small white flowers in dense flat corymbs at the branch ends. Oval berries of a metallic dark blue, very showy. Range: endemic to the Azores.
What it is confused with
Laurustinus
Viburnum tinus
They are nearly identical and both have metallic blue toxic berries. The mainland one has hairs on the veins beneath and flowers in winter; the Azorean one is hairless and flowers in spring. Neither is eaten.
What it is for
None
The berries are toxic and cause vomiting and diarrhoea, as in every viburnum. The metallic blue is among the loveliest things in Azorean scrub, and that is exactly why it needs saying that it is not eaten.
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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