What is it? Is it food?
September 19, 2008 4:20 PM Subscribe
Can you help me identify this mystery plant/fruit? Will it kill my dog if he eats it? Is it edible? Photos included!
It's a pretty vine that grew up naturally next to my spigot, but I just discovered it's also producing fruit (unexpected!). Not sure if it's a native species, but I live in San Diego and it just sort of... is growing. It's a bit soft and squishy, and the inside exudes some sort of sticky, milky white liquid when I pop it open and squeeze it.
Inside of fruit
Plant it grows on
Inside of fruit, dissected
Seed pod
It's a pretty vine that grew up naturally next to my spigot, but I just discovered it's also producing fruit (unexpected!). Not sure if it's a native species, but I live in San Diego and it just sort of... is growing. It's a bit soft and squishy, and the inside exudes some sort of sticky, milky white liquid when I pop it open and squeeze it.
Inside of fruit
Plant it grows on
Inside of fruit, dissected
Seed pod
Best answer: Looks like moth vine, araujia sericifera. Not poisonous, but not tasty either.
posted by goo at 4:46 PM on September 19, 2008
posted by goo at 4:46 PM on September 19, 2008
That looks an awful lot like a milkweed seed pod that hasn't matured. I've never seen a viney milkweed but there are lots of types of milkweed.
posted by 517 at 5:37 PM on September 19, 2008
posted by 517 at 5:37 PM on September 19, 2008
Yeah, I was going to say young milkweed plant, too. It's hard to get a sense of scale from your pictures. Is the pod 2"-4" long and are the hairs trailing from the seeds insanely soft?
posted by cocoagirl at 5:59 PM on September 19, 2008
posted by cocoagirl at 5:59 PM on September 19, 2008
The seed pod definitely looks like that of a vine milkweed, and the white milky sap is characteristic of milkweeds, too. The leaves, however, don't appear to be typical milkweed leaves.
posted by Ostara at 8:42 PM on September 19, 2008
posted by Ostara at 8:42 PM on September 19, 2008
Response by poster: Looks the most like moth vine, and there are a lot of citrus growers in the area, so that makes sense, based on goo's links. Thanks guy! It's pretty, so I guess I'll leave it there, but dispose of the fruits.
posted by booknerd at 8:39 AM on September 22, 2008
posted by booknerd at 8:39 AM on September 22, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
Might be poisonous? But this says no.
You may want to contact a local gardening club. Those folks are always happy to help and tend to know all sorts of information you'd not expect about plants.
posted by sadiehawkinstein at 4:36 PM on September 19, 2008