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Mezereon

 

 

This beautiful plant needs to be known. In Farsi its species name mezereum  means – to kill.

 

The mezereon grows locally in all Estonia; the plant prefers a fertile soil. The sparsely branching shrub can grow up to a metre high. The leaves are placed differently – at the shoot tips in bundles, along the stems sparsely.

 

The pretty bright-coloured fruits, stone fruits or drupes (colloquially berries), are attached to the shoots and are very ornamental in nature.

 

The entire plant is toxic – leaves and stem as well as roots. Already a few berries cause a serious intoxication. As an estimate eating about a dozen berries is thought to be lethal but the taste of the berries is said to be disgusting.

 

But the ”berries” still disappear from the shrubs. Birds eat them with an appetite because the mezereon drupes are not toxic to them and the seeds are excreted with the faeces – so we have to do with a plant spread by birds, a bird-propagated species.

 

Mezereon