Fly honeysuckle
Lonicera xylosteum
Family · Caprifoliaceae · 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 honeysuckle that does not climb: an upright shrub of mountain woodland, with white flowers in pairs and glossy red berries, also in pairs, stuck to each other. The berries are toxic and very attractive.
Oak woods · Uplands
Also known asdwarf honeysuckle
How to tell it
An upright shrub one to two metres tall, with opposite oval leaves softly hairy on both sides. White or cream flowers always in pairs, on a shared stalk. Red berries in pairs, often fused at the base, which is the genus's mark. Range: mainly a Spanish plant, practically absent from Portugal.
What it is confused with
Common honeysuckle
Lonicera periclymenum
The common one climbs and has long trumpet flowers gathered in a head; this is an upright shrub that does not climb, with small flowers always in pairs. Neither's berries are eaten.
What it is for
None
The berries cause vomiting and severe diarrhoea and are among the most recorded childhood poisonings in European mountain woods. The wood is hard and made handles and rake teeth.
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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