VOA健康报道2024--Poisonous Plants Look Like Safe Ones

Poisonous Plants Look Like Safe Ones

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle Report.

Actor Alicia Silverstone worried fans on social media recently. While on a trip to England, she posted a TikTok video of herself tasting a poisonous berry she found along a sidewalk.

Silverstone, who appeared in the 1995 movie Clueless, said she thought the fruit was a tomato. But when she bit into it and found that it had an unusual taste, she realized that it was not the common food.

Plant expert, Jessica Damiano, recently wrote about poisonous plants that look like common foods for the Associated Press.

She said the fruit that looked like a tomato appears to have been a Jerusalem cherry.

Often sold as a houseplant, all parts of the Jerusalem cherry are poisonous. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says the plant is not only harmful to humans but also to dogs, cats and horses. Eating large amounts can be deadly. Silverstone was lucky because she did not swallow the berries.

She is also lucky because the berries were reddish orange. This means they were ripe. While all parts of the Jerusalem cherry are poisonous, the plant's unripe¹ berries can be especially dangerous. They can cause problems with the central nervous and gastrointestinal systems. Symptoms from eating the fruit include mental confusion², stomach pain, high body temperature, vomiting⁴, paralysis⁵ and more.

The Jerusalem cherry is a member of the nightshade family. It is in the same family of plants that includes tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, potatoes and tomatillos. Although the fruits of those crops are safe to eat, their leaves are toxic⁶.

Other toxic lookalikes

The Jerusalem cherry is not the only toxic plant that looks like a safe one.

The poisonous Carolina horsenettle fruit also looks like a tomato. However, its common name is a dead giveaway that it is dangerous. It is called devil's tomato. It is also known as devil's potato to add to the confusion.

Other members of the nightshade family are poisonous in different ways. For example, a plant named deadly nightshade, or belladonna, is so toxic that it was used as a murder weapon in Europe during the Middle Ages, a time more than 500 years ago. Its berries, however, could be mistaken for blueberries.

Pokeweed and Virginia creeper fruits also look like blueberries, and both can be deadly if eaten.

Lilies are toxic, but they look like edible⁷ wild onion or garlic grasses, especially when they first come out of the ground.

Edible wild onion and garlic grasses have other toxic lookalikes, too -- including a plant sometimes called death camas. These plants grow in lawns and wild areas in the spring, and they are a common cause of livestock⁸ poisoning. They are dangerous for humans, too.

Toxic carrot and parsley lookalikes can also make you sick. Wild parsnip has flowers like a carrot and leaves like parsley. Simply touching⁹ it can cause a skin problem called photodermatitis. It causes sun sensitivity¹⁰ that can last for a year. Poison hemlock¹¹ looks similar but is much larger. Eating that plant can lead to breathing problems.

Creeping buttercup looks like flat-leaf parsley. It is an invasive plant that can cause severe stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and heart problems.

And the deadly Canadian moonseed can be confused with wild grape. However, its taste is so bitter that you would likely spit it out before swallowing it. This is a good thing because eating it can lead to death.

If you think you have swallowed a toxic plant by mistake, contact a poison control center in your area or your doctor. There is additional information on the website poison.org.

Damiano advises to use common sense with plants you find in the wild. If you are not completely sure that something is food, do not eat it.

Words in This Story

ripe -adj. fully¹² developed; ready for harvest

symptom -n. the sign that disease is present or that something is wrong with a person's health

confusion -n. being unable to think clearly : confuse -v.

vomiting -n. the condition of expelling¹³ what is in your stomach through your mouth : vomit³ -v.

paralysis -n. the loss of the ability to move one's muscles

toxic -adj. poisonous

dead giveaway -idiom a fact or detail that makes the true nature of something impossible to ignore

edible -adj. fit and safe to be eaten

invasive -adj. tending to spread especially in a quick or aggressive manner: such as

bitter -adj. one of the major tastes that people have which is very unpleasant to most people

1 unripe   

adj.未成熟的；n.未成熟

参考例句：

• I was only ill once and that came of eating an unripe pear.我唯一一次生病是因为吃了未熟的梨。
• Half of the apples are unripe.一半的苹果不熟。

2 confusion   

n.困惑，迷乱，混淆，混乱，骚乱

参考例句：

• His answers to my questions have only added to my confusion.他对我的问题的回答只是使我更加困惑不解。
• His unexpected arrival threw us into total confusion.他的突然来访使我们完全不知所措。

3 vomit   

v.呕吐，作呕；n.呕吐物，吐出物

参考例句：

• They gave her salty water to make her vomit.他们给她喝盐水好让她吐出来。
• She was stricken by pain and began to vomit.她感到一阵疼痛，开始呕吐起来。

4 vomiting   

吐

参考例句：

• Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. 症状有腹泻和呕吐。
• Especially when I feel seasick, I can't stand watching someone else vomiting." 尤其晕船的时候，看不得人家呕。”

5 paralysis   

n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症)

参考例句：

• The paralysis affects his right leg and he can only walk with difficulty.他右腿瘫痪步履维艰。
• The paralysis affects his right leg and he can only walk with difficulty.他右腿瘫痪步履维艰。

6 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

7 edible   

n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的

参考例句：

• Edible wild herbs kept us from dying of starvation.我们靠着野菜才没被饿死。
• This kind of mushroom is edible,but that kind is not.这种蘑菇吃得，那种吃不得。

8 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

9 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

10 sensitivity   

n.敏感（性），灵敏（度）

参考例句：

• Hearing sensitivity declines with age.听觉因年老而衰退。
• Such is the sensitivity of the information that only two people are allowed to know it.这信息极为敏感，只允许两个人知道。

11 hemlock   

n.毒胡萝卜，铁杉

参考例句：

• He was condemned to drink a cup of hemlock.判处他喝一杯毒汁。
• Here is a beech by the side of a hemlock,with three pines at hand.这儿有株山毛榉和一株铁杉长在一起，旁边还有三株松树。

12 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

13 expelling   

驱逐( expel的现在分词 )； 赶走； 把…除名； 排出

参考例句：

• Catholic Spain had, by expelling its Jews, achieved the spiritual security of a united church. 信奉天主教的西班牙人在逐出犹太人后，统一了教会，在精神上获得了安全感。
• Expelling wind and cold pathogens, relieving exterior syndrome and clearing away heat. 疏风散寒，迅速缓解风寒感冒症状。