There seem to be hundreds of varieties of fruits that are also beneficial for our health in one way or another (sundry vitamins, good carbohydrates and proteins, etc.) but I could not name a single tasty fruit which is toxic.
So, how many poisonous fruits are there? If not as many as their non-poisonous counterparts, why? Human interference or relation between toxicity and fruit efficiency?
Lust?
Not exactly what you are after, but the Yew Berry has sweet flesh that is safe and nice to eat however the seed inside is pretty toxic, its ok to swallow the seed whole ( though I wouldn’t recommend it) as it should pass though you quite safely - I believe that this actually helps the seed itself when its planted to germinate.
In fact the whole of the Yew is poisonous and can cause problems for livestock, the only thing that is safe is the flesh of the berry.Even the dead material from a Yew is toxic, it only takes half a pound (imagine just part of a Christmas wreath)to kill a good sized horse, the seeds are much more toxic.
http://rfs.org.uk/thirdlevel.asp?ThirdLevel=179&SecondLevel=33
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/horses/facts/info_yewtoxicity.htm
Just a WAG, but isn’t one of the purposes of fruit to widely disperse the seed of a plant. I know many seeds can pass through the digestive systems of birds and mammals and are thus distributed far and wide in a convenient little pile of fertilizer. Perhaps toxic fruit would not be evolutionarily advantageous as you would kill off one of your main dispersal methods.
Not a clue, I really don’t remember the incident but apparently when I was about 3 years old I snacked on some deadly nightshade berries, so they must be palatable to small children - I imagine they must be fairly sweet. I can also joke about being immune to deadly nightshade because it took half an hour for my parents to drive me to the nearest ER, and they insisted the doc pump my stomach … he apparently didnt see a need to because I wasn’t ill, and i was more grumpy at not getting to keep playing and being dragged off to this very strange place full of people and strange smells.
There are a lot of them. See the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine Guide to Poisonous and Toxic Plants:
Index A-K
Index L-Z
The list does tell which parts of each plant is toxic.
Generally, if a plant contains toxins, there’s a good chance that the fruit is also poisonous.
I am told that belladonna (deadly nightshade) berries taste quite pleasant. And they also dilate your pupils, hence the Italian name. And kill you, hence the English name.
How very Anglo Saxon to dwell on the negative aspects of the plant. And how very Mediterranean to highlight its seductive qualities.
Well, it’s not normally considered a fruit ( either botanically or colloquially ), but the biggest killer among poisonous mushrooms, the Deathcap ( Amanita phalloides ), is reputedly quite tasty. And it is a fruiting body, if not really a fruit :D.
It seems to me that it would be very difficult to have a list of toxic fruits that taste good. People try to avoid eating them as much as possible so reports on their taste wouldn’t be very common, and a fair number of people would be too dead to let anyone know how those berries tasted.
I would guess that there would be some that are toxic only if eaten raw, however. I don’t know any in particular, just a WAG
Which is IIRC the tomato was once considered unsafe to eat as the leaves and stems are toxic to humans.