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Comment by maxklein | Hacker News Reader

Okay, someone a bit more intelligent than me should correct me on this:

Are most poisonous plants not bitter or foul tasting? Also, apart from mushrooms, don't they usually signal their poison?

Why does a plant develop poison if not to discourage animals from eating it : and if it does not signal through taste or look, how would an animal know?

I know nothing about this topic, I'm actually curious.

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The problem is actually that lots of things that you can eat taste horrible. And you won't find much ripe fruit in the wild anyway, because they're eaten right away.

Many wild plants are bitter while being perfectly edible - pokeweed, for example, is widely eaten despite being rather bitter without preparation (it is still edible even raw, I've munched on it often when hiking as a teen). Others are perfectly tasty while being poison, some will just make you sick, but wild almonds are supposed to taste like domestic ones, but have enough cyanide to kill a child outright.

All other sources I have found suggest that mature poke leaves are poisonous until cooked. I'm not sure if Bill is a troll, wrong, or just of solid constitution, but please do your own research before taking his advice on wild edibles.

ps. I've also seen no one else claim that "wild almonds" taste like domestic almonds: "not even the most ardent nut lover among us will eat wild almonds; their lousy taste keeps us away" http://discovermagazine.com/1994/sep/biologyandmedici422

I've seen claims both ways on leaves - poisonous and not - I've only eaten them cooked and don't particularly like them. The young stalks are the only part universally agreed not to be poison, that is the part I have eaten often (older stems gain poison later - rule of thumb is not to eat them after they start turning purple, though I have eaten them up until they started getting woody without problems). Some sources claim the berries are poisonous some claim not, but I grew up being told they were poison and have never tried them. And the root is universally agreed to be seriously poison.

As I understand it, poisonous things are often orange. But, then, plenty of things that aren't poisonous are also orange. If you can mimic a poisonous thing and convince other things to not eat you, bonus! Producing poison is actually rather costly, so just being a scam artist is a cheaper way to survive. Of course, this only works if actual poisonous stuff outnumbers scam artist plants/critters. If the percentage relationship is reversed, the whole thing falls apart because other things conclude that "You're probably safe to eat, since most other things that look like you have proven to be safe".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_melon

Yeah, Goya looks like and tastes like something you should definitely not eat but is a great food when cooked, despite it's bitter taste.

It's also used as a natural insulin substitute.

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