Image: Leycesteria formosa berries close-up

Description: Extreme close-up of two ripe fruits of Leycesteria formosa, with their pink bracts with deeper pink veins. This shrub is a popular garden plant in the UK, grown for its pendent strings of pale flowers subtended by deep pink bracts. It was introduced from its native Himalayas as an ornamental and as food for pheasants - hence the main English common name "pheasant berry" - raised as game birds, which relish the ripe fruits. When fully ripe and deep purple-brown - as seen here - the fruits are also edible by humans, having a mild caramel/chocolate flavour, although they are bitter and acrid when unripe. These berries are too delicate and easily burst to be harvested commercially, but can make a tasty snack for foragers. Visible in this greatly magnified image: the delicate trichomes (plant hairs) clothing the fruits and the tiny, star-shaped, persistent calyces at their tips. L. formosa is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine and the hollow stems have been used in India to make whistles and flutes. This species is naturalised in the UK, although not considered invasive there; whereas in Australia and New Zealand it is considered a noxious weed - not only suppressing the growth of native plants but also implicated in cattle deaths. The foliage and unripe fruits are suspected to be poisonous, but are unlikely to cause the poisoning of humans, given their unpleasant taste.
Title: Leycesteria formosa berries close-up
Credit: Own work
Author: Flobbadob
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
License Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
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