Can I eat this, garden edition

March 29, 2016 11:43 AM

I'm actually more wondering if these plants are poisonous. Pics inside.

Here's a gallery of crappy phone photos : imgur gallery images...

I'm renting, so it's probably not ideal to tear whatever this is out, but my cats like to play in these vines (?) and one of them is a champion gnawer. I tried poking around on plant ID sites, but I failed.

I'm in Seattle. The plants clearly were important to someone at some point, since they're trellised all along the fence. They've had the little dusty-looking blue berries continuously since January, and I admit I tasted just a little of the juice from one about a month ago. It was nasty, so probably not edible? But wintered, dead, shriveled berries aren't usually tasty, so. Also I am not a cat.

posted by zinful to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

Response by poster: whooooops, forgot to add cat pictures...Grim and Kaiju
posted by zinful at 11:55 AM on March 29, 2016

I think it's lonicera Halliana. Likely to have poisonous berries.
posted by Solomon at 12:08 PM on March 29, 2016

Japanese Honeysuckle (lonicera japonica)? Depending on the variety, the berries can be blue-black or red. Have you seen it flowering? The berries are poisonous to humans, but I don't know how cats react to them.
posted by Gneisskate at 12:11 PM on March 29, 2016

For some cats honeysuckle has an effect like catnip but berries may be toxic
posted by KateViolet at 2:42 PM on March 29, 2016

Cats are hunters and live on meat. Rarely cats like fruit, like cantaloupe, they don't go berry hunting out doors, they chase stuff that moves, bugs, mice. I would not worry about the vine.
posted by Oyéah at 4:04 PM on March 29, 2016

Some cats will eat anything. I had one once that would eat _anything_ tiny and dark -- I think she confused it with a bug, or maybe a treat. Cats _are_ weird.

Also: most cats will eat grass (or plants that resemble grass if they are clueless enough).
posted by amtho at 5:13 PM on March 29, 2016

Response by poster: I haven't seen the flowers yet, but it's looking like I'll know for sure by June if it's Lonicera H. It boggles my mind that people grow fruit bearing plants for (poisonous!) decorations rather than gastronomical purposes, but flowers are cool too, I guess.

The kitties haven't shown any particular interest in eating the berries, I just like to know whether there are toxic plants around in case they start acting poisoned :)
posted by zinful at 6:08 PM on March 29, 2016