Ivy
Hedera helix
Family · Araliaceae · 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
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The climber that covers walls, trunks and ruins across the country. It is toxic if eaten and causes dermatitis in many people, but it is also one of the few plants offering nectar in November, when nothing else flowers.
Oak woods · Walls and rocks · Town and roadside · Streams and ditches
Also known ascommon ivy, English ivy
How to tell it
Two forms on the same plant, which confuses everyone: the climbing shoots have five-lobed leaves, and the flowering shoots at the top have entire diamond-shaped leaves. The black berries ripen in winter.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
None by mouth
The sap causes contact dermatitis in sensitive people, especially when pruning, and the berries are toxic. Ecologically it is worth gold: autumn nectar and winter shelter for birds.
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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