Flax-leaved daphne
Daphne gnidium
Family · Thymelaeaceae · Can kill
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.
The upright, unremarkable shrub of Mediterranean scrub, with narrow leaves packed along the stem and red berries in autumn. The bark does not snap: it bends and strips like cord.
Scrubland · Pine woods · Dunes and sand · Montado
Also known asMediterranean mezereon
How to tell it
Try to snap a twig: it will not break, it bends and the bark peels off in fibrous strips. Narrow stiff leaves, green all year, packed in a spiral. Red or orange berries.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
None acceptable today. It was traditionally used to stun fish in river pools, a long-banned practice, and the bark served as cord. Prolonged contact with the sap burns the skin.