Foraging in Málaga

Know these first

What can hurt you around Málaga in October

11 species on our hazard list have been recorded near here this month, 8 of which can kill a healthy adult. Learn these before you learn anything you intend to eat.

• Can kill23 records 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 kill14 records nearby

  Tree tobacco

  Nicotiana glauca

  Mistaken for

  Wild greens: its large, soft leaves have been picked and cooked as a spinach. It is an invasive weed of roadsides, dry riverbeds and waste ground in many parts of Africa.

  How to tell

  A lanky, hairless shrub or small tree with bluish-grey, rubbery, oval leaves up to 20 cm long, and loose clusters of narrow yellow tubular flowers about 5 cm long at the branch tips. No edible green has that waxy blue-grey colour and yellow trumpet.

  What it does

  Anabasine, a nicotine relative: muscle weakness and paralysis that can stop the breathing after a meal of the cooked leaves. Every part is poisonous, raw or cooked, and ingestion has been fatal.

• Can kill11 records nearby

  Oleander

  Nerium oleander

  Mistaken for

  Nothing edible, but it is planted along roads and in gardens everywhere, and its straight green stems look like ready-made braai skewers.

  How to tell

  A shrub with long, narrow, leathery leaves in pairs or threes, each with a strong pale midrib; clusters of pink, white or red flowers; and long, thin pods of fluffy seeds.

  What it does

  Cardiac glycosides in every part. It is bitter, so serious poisoning is uncommon, but toddlers have died after eating the leaves. Never use its stems as skewers or its leaves for tea.

• Can kill7 records nearby

  Distaff thistle (stemless atractylis)

  Chamaeleon gummifer

  Mistaken for

  Wild artichoke and other thistles eaten in North Africa; and children chew the sticky gum that oozes from it.

  How to tell

  A stemless thistle: a flat rosette of spiny leaves on the ground with a single big pinkish flower head sitting right in the middle, ringed by spiny bracts, in late summer and autumn. Its long root and the ripe head ooze a white or yellowish gum.

  What it does

  Atractyloside and carboxyatractyloside shut down the cells' energy supply, with vomiting, convulsions and liver and kidney failure. It is a common cause of plant poisoning in Morocco: at least 98 deaths between 1981 and 2004, most of them children.

• Can kill2 records nearby

  Ragworts and groundsels (Senecio)

  Senecio (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Wild greens and herbal teas — and, in the past, home-grown wheat: Senecio in the flour poisoned whole families in South Africa's George district in 1918.

  How to tell

  Daisy-family plants with yellow flower heads (with or without petals), each head wrapped in a single row of narrow green bracts, often black-tipped, and seeds carrying white fluffy parachutes. A yellow daisy you can't name does not go in the pot.

  What it does

  Pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which baking does not destroy. They block the small veins of the liver (veno-occlusive disease): pain, a swollen liver and fluid in the belly, and in many cases cirrhosis. Children are the most vulnerable.

• Can kill1 record nearby

  Yew

  Taxus baccata

  Mistaken for

  Its sweet red arils look like berries, and it lines churchyards, parks and hedges where foragers pick spruce tips and juniper.

  How to tell

  Flat, dark green needles in two rows, plain green underneath with no white stripes, and red fleshy cups open at one end with a hard seed showing. No cones, no resin smell.

  What it does

  Taxine alkaloids stop the heart. The needles and the seed inside the red flesh are poisonous, there is no antidote, and about 50 g of needles can kill an adult.

• Can kill1 record nearby

  Thorn apple (Datura)

  Datura (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Young plants come up among amaranth (morogo) and other wild greens in maize fields and gardens, and children eat the seeds.

  How to tell

  A coarse, rank-smelling plant with large, irregularly toothed leaves, big upright trumpet flowers, white or purple, and a spiny, walnut-sized capsule packed with small dark seeds. Amaranth has smooth-edged leaves and only bristly flower spikes.

  What it does

  Atropine and scopolamine: dry mouth, hot flushed skin, a racing heart, huge pupils, then delirium and hallucinations that can last a day or more. It has killed adults and children.

• 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.

• Hospital8 records nearby

  Euphorbias (milk bushes, naboom, pencil tree)

  Euphorbia (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Prickly pear and other cacti — many African euphorbias are spiny, leafless succulents that look exactly like cacti — and the pencil-stick hedges of Euphorbia tirucalli around farms and villages.

  How to tell

  Break a stem: a euphorbia bleeds white milky latex at once. Cacti such as prickly pear bleed clear or slimy sap, and their spines grow from small fuzzy cushions; euphorbia spines grow singly or in pairs, never from a cushion.

  What it does

  The latex burns skin and mouth, and in the eye can cause temporary blindness. Wear gloves and eye protection near a cut plant, and never rub your eyes.

• Hospital4 records 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.

• Unpleasant

  1 record nearby

  Buttercups

  Ranunculus (the whole genus)

  Mistaken for

  Young greens gathered in damp meadows, and marsh marigold.

  How to tell

  Glossy five-petalled yellow flowers; the leaves are acrid and burn the tongue when tasted raw.

  What it does

  Blisters the mouth and skin. Cooking destroys it, which is why marsh marigold is always boiled.

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.