Start with the poisonous berries on the National Capital Poison Center list. Holly, pokeweed, Jerusalem cherry, deadly nightshade, mistletoe and yew are all on it. The Utah Poison Control Center names others. Baneberry, bittersweet nightshade, cotoneaster and firethorn are on that one. None of them belong in your mouth, whatever the birds do with them all fall. The one you are most likely to meet in your own yard is pokeweed. It stands tall, with dark purple fruit on hot pink stems.
My dog came out of the mulch bed along the north side of the house with a purple muzzle and purple feet. I found the chewed stems, called the vet, and pulled the plant with one hand while I was still on the phone. She was fine. That pokeweed had stood there two summers because the mockingbirds worked it over every August and I liked watching them do it.
Pokeweed is an important wildlife food source. It is also toxic to humans, pets and livestock, and both halves are true at once. Large amounts can cause death. So a berry that feeds birds all fall tells you nothing at all about whether you can eat it. Pokeweed berries are the clearest example of that gap you will find in a yard.
Some of the poisonous berries near your door came with the house. Utah lists cotoneaster and firethorn as cultivated plants, which means a person chose them and put them in for the fruit. Baneberry and bittersweet nightshade show up on the native side of the same list. Baneberry is poisonous in every part, and the root stock and sap hold the most of it. Look at what sits along your foundation before you call the yard clean.
Nightshade berries cover the widest spread of harm on paper. The UF/IFAS list of what these berries do to a person runs from gastrointestinal problems and weakness to hallucinations and death. It also notes that the effects vary by species, and the nightshade family is a big one. So you cannot treat what you read about one nightshade as the rule for the next. Deadly nightshade is the one with the reputation, and it has earned it.
Jerusalem cherry is the one I would watch hardest indoors. It sells as a holiday houseplant and sets fat orange fruit at toddler height. Holly does that same job outside your front door in December, in red. Neither one looks like a threat to a three-year-old, and that is the trouble with judging a berry by how friendly it looks.
Eat only the wild plants you are certain of. Certain means you can name the species out loud. It does not mean the fruit looks close enough to something you ate on a trip once. Even a plant with no toxin in it at all can choke a small child, which is why the poison center prints that line right beside its list of poisonous berries.
Call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222. Bring the plant, or a photo of it, to the phone with you.
Your animals need the same care. Cornell's list of plants poisonous to livestock includes black, bitter, choke and pin cherries. A hedge line that is fine for the people in the house is not fine for a goat or a pony behind it. Walk the fence and learn what grows there before anything grazes it. If you cannot name a shrub, treat its fruit as off limits until you can.
Read the full article: Poisonous Plants: Which Ones Are Truly Deadly
