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White Bryony

©Amy Lewis

White bryony

A climbing plant of hedgerows and woodlands, white bryony produces greenish flowers from late spring and shiny, red berries from late summer.

Scientific name

Bryonia dioica

When to see

March to October

Species information

Category

Statistics

Height: up to 4m

Conservation status

Common.

About

White bryony is a climbing hedgerow and woodland edge plant that flowers between May and August. It produces berries that become a shiny red as they ripen. Our only native member of the cucumber family, white bryony is actually highly poisonous. It forms a massive, tuberous root stock that is particularly toxic.

White bryony supports the bryony mining bee, which only gathers pollen from flowers of white bryony, though it may take nectar from other flowers. It is also the foodplant of the bryony ladybird, a fairly recent colonist in the UK.

How to identify

A climbing plant, white bryony has curling tendrils and leaves with five lobes. It displays greenish, five-petalled flowers and orange-red berries.

Distribution

Mainly found in England, particularly in the south and east.

Did you know?

In times past, the roots of white bryony were often 'passed off' as an entirely different species: mandrake. A native of the Mediterranean, mandrake was used as a painkiller and narcotic, and was also believed to be an aphrodisiac because its roots often looked like human figures (they supposedly shrieked as they were pulled from the earth). However, the real thing was hard to grow, so cheats would carve the roots of white bryony into human-like forms and sell them.