Content
- With which plants can the ragwort be confused?
- Deceptively similar: St. John's wort
- Meadow Hippopotamus and Jakobsgreiskraut differ
- Confusion with rocket
- Tips
The St. John's wort pictured here looks very similar to St. James's wort
With which plants can the ragwort be confused?
The ragwort has been spreading for over 20 years and is often a problem on agricultural land. Even small amounts of the highly toxic plant are poisonous to humans and animals and can permanently damage the liver. Often the plant is mistaken for non-toxic plants and inadvertently taken.
Early article Plant characteristics of the ragwort Next article Poisoning of humans and animals by the JakobskreuzkrautDeceptively similar: St. John's wort
Medicinal and poisonous plants can be quickly confused by laymen, as both plants carry bright yellow flowers. Often, they thrive in peaceful harmony at the same locations and have the same flowering time. A confusion could be fatal, so you better look twice at collecting St. John's wort.
The ragwort is a basketblood with a different number of petals. The flowers themselves resemble margarita flowers and look like little suns. It grows between thirty inches to a meter tall.
The St. John's wort, however, forms cymes and has always exactly five broad petals. It grows tight and grows between thirty and eighty centimeters. When rubbing the buds, the deep red hypericin comes out (blood St. John).Since this is never the case with ragweed, you can identify the plant beyond doubt.
If the plants do not bloom, they can be easily distinguished from the leaves. The St. John's wort has small, about three inches long leaves. Those of the dangerous ragwort are significantly larger and often covered by a nasty fluff.
Meadow Hippopotamus and Jakobsgreiskraut differ
The Wisenpippau is also a daisy family, which, however, in contrast to the golden yellow "Margaritenblüte" of the St. Jacob's herb has a yellow flower similar to the dandelion. The stem-leaves of the Pippaus are far less cut out than those of the Jakobsgreiskrautes. Often the poisonous plant has a violet-tinted stalk. This is always colored in the non-toxic Pippau deep green.
Confusion with rocket
The leaves of the extraordinarily popular salad rocket and the ragwort are at first glance very similar and can therefore be confused by laymen. In 2019, a few leaves of ragwort were found in a pack of rocket purchased from a supermarket. However, this incident remained unique.
First of all, arugula can be unequivocally identified by its strong and unique smell. In contrast to the leaves of the ragwort, rucola leaves are hairless and relatively soft. Those of the herb, however, are spider-web hairy and resemble in their structure rather tough thistles. In addition, rocket does not grow wild in our latitudes, so you can assume that it is Jakobsgreiskraut in a supposed find.
Tips
In Germany, more than 25 different ragwort species are known, all of which are different toxic. If you often collect herbs yourself, you should also inform yourself about the appearance of these poison plants.