Alicia Silverstone worried her fans this week when she posted a TikTok clip of herself nibbling on a poisonous berry she found on the road during a trip to the UK.
The Clueless The actress said she thought the fruit was a tomato, but after a few bites she noticed a strange, peppery taste and realized it was not a tomato.
This tomato lookalike appears to have been a Jerusalem artichoke (Solanum pseudocapsicum), which, along with tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, potatoes and tomatillos, belongs to the group of Nightshade familyor nightshade plants. Although the fruits (and potato tubers) of these plants are safe to eat, their leaves can be poisonous.
No matter where you are in the world, if you are not 100% sure that something is food, please do not put it in your mouth.
Concerns about the Jerusalem cherry
According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, all parts of the Jerusalem artichoke sold as a houseplant are poisonous not only to humans but also to dogs, cats and horses.
Silverstone was lucky because she didn’t swallow the berries, she says. And perhaps also because the berries were reddish-orange, indicating that they were ripe.
Other toxic doppelgangers
The poisonous Carolina horse nettle (Solanum carolinense) Fruits also resemble tomatoes. Their common name “devil’s potato” is a dead giveaway.
Other members of the nightshade family are poisonous to varying degrees. The aptly named deadly nightshade (Atropa Belladonna), for example, is so poisonous that it was used as a murder weapon in the Middle Ages. Its berries, however, could be confused with blueberries.
The fruits of the pokeweed and wild grapevine also resemble blueberries and can be fatal if eaten.
The poisonous lilies, especially in the early stages, bear a striking resemblance to edible onion and garlic grasses.
These edible wild onion and garlic grasses, which sprout in gardens and vacant lots in spring, also have other poisonous lookalikes, including the death kamas (Toxicoscordion nuttallii), a common cause of poisoning in livestock that is also dangerous to humans.
Even creepy carrot and parsley doppelgangers can cause trouble. Simply touching wild parsnips (Pastinaca sativa), which has carrot-like flowers and parsley-like leaves, can cause photodermatitis, a blistering caused by sun exposure that can last for a year. And eating hemlock (Conium maculatum), which looks similar but is much larger, can cause respiratory failure.
Creeping buttercup, an invasive perennial weed that closely resembles flat-leaf parsley, can cause severe abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, irregular heartbeat, and more. And the deadly Canadian moonseed plant (Canadian Menispermum) can be confused with wild grape (Vitis spp.).
However, because the taste is so bitter, you would probably spit it out, which is a good thing, since ingesting it can cause convulsions and death.
Poisonous plants in Hong Kong
Who to call
In Hong Kong, call 999 if you or someone you know experiences a severe reaction after accidentally ingesting a potentially poisonous plant.
Additional reporting by the staff reporter.
