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Toxic☠️ To avoid

🟡 Laburnum (Golden Chain Tree)

Laburnum anagyroides · Fabaceae

🌳 Temperate Europe🏔️ Mountains
🧠 To remember itGolden chains bring pain—pods hanging from a tree with bright yellow flowers are never peas.
Laburnum (Golden Chain Tree) — Laburnum anagyroides

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

A small tree or shrub widely planted as an ornamental for its long, drooping clusters of bright yellow flowers in spring, reminiscent of acacia clusters. Its green then brown pods, resembling small bean pods, contain toxic black seeds that particularly attract children who mistake them for peas.

  1. drooping clusters of bright golden-yellow flowers, very showy in spring, resembling false acacia blossoms in a different color
  2. trifoliate leaves (3 leaflets), arranged alternately
  3. flattened pods, green then dark brown at maturity, containing several shiny black seeds
  4. smooth greenish to greyish bark, very hard and dark wood (hence 'false ebony')
Size3 to 7 m
FloweringApril-June
Habitatwidely planted as an ornamental, in hedges, parks, and naturalized at mountain forest edges

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Peas or green beans (seeds mistaken by a child) (Pisum sativum / Phaseolus spp.)none for these cultivated vegetables

To tell them apart: laburnum seeds are glossy black inside a flattened pod hanging from an ornamental tree, never in a vegetable garden; never let a child pick up fallen pods beneath a tree with hanging yellow flowers

☠️ What kills

nomCytisine (a quinolizidine alkaloid with nicotinic action), concentrated in the seeds and pods
dose letale estimeeabout 15 seeds can cause severe poisoning in a child; verified fatal cases remain rare but are documented at high doses (approx)
delai30 min to 1 h
symptomesnausea, violent vomiting, excessive salivation, abdominal pain, followed in severe cases by agitation, tremors, seizures, and respiratory distress due to nicotinic action
antidoteno specific antidote; symptomatic treatment, respiratory and neurological monitoring
morts documenteessevere cases documented mainly in children who ingested a large number of seeds; confirmed deaths are rare but reported in historical toxicological literature (approx)

First steps : Call poison control immediately upon ingestion of seeds or pods, even in small amounts by a child. Do not induce vomiting. If possible, count the number of seeds ingested and save a pod for identification.

Sources (2)

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.