Skip to content

Your account

With an account, your progress (modules read, XP, badges, cards, notebook, pack, challenges) follows you on every device. Without one, it stays in this browser.

or
Deadly☠️ To avoid

🫐 Deadly Nightshade

Atropa belladonna · Solanaceae

🌳 Temperate Europe🫒 Mediterranean🏔️ Mountains
🧠 To remember it« Beautiful to see, deadly as can be »: shiny black berry on a star-shaped calyx — never put it in your mouth.
Deadly Nightshade — Atropa belladonna

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Bushy plant found in limestone clearings and forest logging areas. Recognizable by its brownish-purple bell-shaped flowers, followed by shiny black, cherry-sized berries that taste sweet and are especially attractive to children. The entire plant is toxic, but the sweet, inconspicuous berries cause the most accidental poisonings.

  1. shiny black berries, solitary, cherry-sized, resting on a persistent 5-pointed green star-shaped calyx beneath the fruit
  2. drooping bell-shaped flowers, brownish-purple on the outside, greenish-yellow inside
  3. large, oval, entire leaves arranged alternately
  4. slightly fetid odor when foliage is crushed
Size0,5 to 1,5 m
FloweringJune-August, berries July-September
Habitatclearings, cool forest logging gaps, nitrogen-rich limestone soils, rubble in wooded areas

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Bilberry / Wild Blueberry (Vaccinium myrtillus)none for bilberries

To tell them apart: bilberry is a low dwarf shrub (30-60 cm) with small serrated leaves and dull blue-black berries in clusters; deadly nightshade is a tall plant with large, solitary, shiny black berries on a star-shaped calyx

Black Nightshade (ripe) (Solanum nigrum)lower toxicity for black nightshade

To tell them apart: deadly nightshade berries are much larger (10-20 mm) and solitary, borne on a clearly visible 5-pointed green calyx, unlike the small clustered berries of black nightshade

☠️ What kills

nomAnticholinergic tropane alkaloids: atropine, hyoscyamine, scopolamine
dose letale estimee10 to 20 berries can kill a child; lethal dose of atropine in adults estimated around 10 mg (Toxinz, approx)
delai30 min to 2 h
symptomesdry mouth and skin, mydriasis (severely dilated pupils), facial flushing, fever, tachycardia, restlessness leading to hallucinatory delirium, seizures, coma, and respiratory arrest in severe cases
antidotephysostigmine in a specialized hospital setting for severe cases; treatment is primarily symptomatic
morts documenteesyes, historically and in modern toxicological literature, especially in young children who ate the berries

First steps : Call poison control immediately, even if no visible symptoms appear right away. Do not induce vomiting. If possible, count the number of ingested berries and save a sample for emergency services.

Sources (3)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.