Ripe, poisonous European baneberry spotted on Lempäälä summer cottage plot

A toxic berry plant turned up on a summer cottage plot in Lempäälä this summer. Tomi Kumpulainen, Aamulehti's nature expert and curator at the Tampere Natural History Museum, identified it as European baneberry (Actaea spicata) and warned that the entire plant, including the ripe berries, is poisonous and should not be eaten.

Birds commonly eat the ripe berries without harm and spread the seeds, which likely explains how the plant appeared without being planted. Kumpulainen described the flowers as white and tufted, like a small bottlebrush with a faint grapefruit scent, and noted that a threatened local moth species feeds on its leaves.

There have been similar reader reports before; for example, a recent Aamulehti report identifying poisonous lookalike mushrooms near a Ylöjärvi cottage.

Readers can send photos and observations to the column at [email protected]. Kumpulainen usually handles reports from Pirkanmaa.