Foraging in Accra

Know these first

What can hurt you around Accra in October

4 species on our hazard list have been recorded near here this month, 3 of which can kill a healthy adult. Learn these before you learn anything you intend to eat.

• Can kill1 record nearby

  Castor oil plant

  Ricinus communis

  Mistaken for

  Its mottled seeds look like beans, or like fat ticks, and children pick them up; it grows as a weed on riverbanks, roadsides and rubbish heaps across Africa.

  How to tell

  Big, glossy, hand-shaped leaves with five to eleven pointed, toothed lobes, often flushed red; spiny three-lobed seed capsules; and smooth, shiny, bean-like seeds mottled brown and grey with a small pale cap at one end.

  What it does

  Ricin. Four to eight chewed seeds are considered a lethal dose for an adult: burning mouth, then bloody diarrhoea, dehydration and collapse over several days. Seeds swallowed whole may pass unbroken, but never count on it.

• Can kill1 record nearby

  Rosary pea (crab's eye)

  Abrus precatorius

  Mistaken for

  Nothing anyone eats on purpose — but the glossy scarlet seeds with a black eye are strung as beads and lucky charms, and children pick them up and chew them.

  How to tell

  A slender twining vine with feathery leaves of many small paired leaflets, and short pods that curl open to show hard, shiny, pea-sized seeds: bright red with one black spot.

  What it does

  Abrin, close kin to ricin and far more potent. A single seed, well chewed, can kill an adult or a child; vomiting, convulsions and organ failure can take days to develop.

• Can kill1 record nearby

  Yellow oleander

  Cascabela thevetia

  Mistaken for

  Nothing edible, but it is a common hedge and garden shrub across tropical Africa, and children play with the hard seeds.

  How to tell

  Narrow, glossy, willow-like leaves; funnel-shaped flowers, usually yellow, sometimes apricot or white; and a fleshy fruit that ripens red to black around one large, hard seed. Twigs bleed milky sap.

  What it does

  Cardiac glycosides that drying and cooking do not destroy: vomiting, then a dangerously slow, irregular heartbeat. Every part is toxic; swallowing the seeds is a common means of suicide in South Asia.

• Hospital1 record nearby

  Lantana (tickberry)

  Lantana camara

  Mistaken for

  Blackberry-like clusters of small dark berries that children pick; it smothers forest edges, roadsides and farmland across East and southern Africa.

  How to tell

  A scrambling shrub with square, prickly stems, rough leaves that smell sharp when crushed, flat clusters of tiny flowers that change colour as they age (yellow to orange, pink or red), and tight bunches of small berries ripening green to glossy purple-black.

  What it does

  The green, unripe berries are the dangerous ones: vomiting, diarrhoea and difficulty breathing have been reported in people. Livestock that eat the leaves suffer liver damage and severe sunburn.

These are recorded within about 40 km of here in this month, from verified public observations. It is not a complete list of what is dangerous — nothing is — and a species missing from it may still be in your woods. Never eat anything identified from a photograph and a description alone.