Strawberry is known to be a delicious wild fruit, sweet and sour. However, the price is also very high, generally around 1 yuan, and the newly listed strawberries are even sold for hundreds of yuan and 0 catties. Speaking of strawberries, I think of another plant. This plant is very similar to strawberries, with dense seeds on the surface, and the color is very bright, which makes it look very appetizing.

But whether it can be eaten or not, there has been controversy among the people, in the past the old people often said that it was crawled by snakes and could not be eaten, it is the wild fruit snakeberry. Today, the author will take you to know and understand this plant, to see if it is really poisonous and whether it can be eaten.

Meet Snakeberry, Learn about Snakeberry

Snakeberry is an extremely common herb in the countryside and usually prefers to grow in shady places. Its fruit is red and looks delicious, and I ate it when I was a child. However, it is often blocked by adults, and many friends who grew up in the countryside after 80 and 0 should know this wild fruit. However, he is often warned by his elders that the fruit of snakeberry has been spit on by snakes, and it is poisonous and cannot be eaten.

When I grew up, I realized that it was a white lie that snakeberries were poisonous, but in fact, the fruit of snakeberries was not poisonous. Hunan Jishou University has conducted a special study on this, and researchers have experimented with mice, drying a large amount of snakeberry powder and feeding it to mice. As a result, the mice did not react abnormally, and snakeberries proved to be non-poisonous. The white foam on the snakeberry fruit is not actually the saliva of the snake, but the foam blown by the cicada.

So where did the rumors that snakeberries are poisonous come from?In fact, there have been debates about the poison of snakeberries in all dynasties in China. For example, Tao Hongjing, a famous medical scientist during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, said in the "Catalogue of Famous Doctors": "Snakeberry, sweet, sour, cold, poisonous." In addition, Li Shizhen also mentioned in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" that snakeberries are not edible, so everyone will naturally think that snakeberries are poisonous. Therefore, there is a saying that snakeberries are poisonous and cannot be eaten by snakes, in fact, many ancient books have also recorded that snakeberries are not poisonous.

Is there any basis for saying that snakeberries are poisonous? In fact, although it has been scientifically proven that snakeberry is not poisonous, there is actually a certain basis for saying that it is poisonous. First of all, snakeberry is a dwarf herb that usually grows on the ground. And it especially likes to grow in dark and damp places, where there are many mosquitoes and poisonous snakes. The fruit of snakeberry is often easily attracted to small insects such as mosquitoes and ants. Let's not talk about whether it is poisonous or not, at least it is very dirty, so some elders will warn children that snakeberries are poisonous.

Secondly, snakeberries are really not delicious, the author did not believe in evil when I was a child, I ate it, it was really bland and tasteless, not delicious. In addition, the fruit of snakeberry is a wild fruit of the Great Cold, and it is easy to have diarrhea if you eat too much, which may be precisely because of these reasons. Our ancestors believed that snakeberries were poisonous and have been passed down among the people for thousands of years.

The value of snakeberries

Although snakeberry is not delicious, it is also a very valuable herb. First of all, the fruit is spongy and has a very high water content. In the case of lack of water in the wild, you can eat snakeberries to replenish water in an emergency, and you can't eat more. In addition, snakeberry is also a commonly used materia medica, that is, snakeberry is also a kind of Chinese herbal medicine.

You can use it for colds, coughs, fevers, sore throats, mosquitoes, snake bites, burns, bruises, and bone bruises. It is recorded in Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica": "snakeberry compress burns". In addition, it is also recorded in the "Sichuan Traditional Chinese Medicine Chronicle": "Snakeberry cools the blood and passes through the meridians." Treat epilepsy, cold and fever, and treat sore throat", it can be seen that although snakeberry is very common in the folk, its value cannot be ignored.

Well, that's all for today's article. What do you know about Snakeberry? Do you know Snakeberry? Have you ever eaten a wild fruit like snakeberry when you were younger? Did the elders in the family ever tell you that snakeberries are poisonous? Is there still a snake berry in your hometown? If you have anything to say, you can also leave a message in the comment area below to share your insights.