Fuchsia
Fuchsia magellanica
An arching deciduous shrub with slender reddish stems, hung from midsummer with pendent flowers: four swept-back scarlet sepals around a short tube of violet petals, with stamens and style projecting well beyond. The fruit that follows is an oblong purple-black berry, soft when ripe, sweet to insipid with a faint peppery note. Long planted as hedging and thoroughly naturalised in the mild west.
Naturalised from garden and hedging stock rather than native. Most abundant in the mild, damp west — Cornwall, west Wales, western Scotland and much of Ireland — where it forms field boundaries, lines lanes and persists on old croft and cottage sites. Prefers sheltered, largely frost-free ground.
No significant eating toxicity is recorded for the ripe berries or the flowers, though fruit quality varies from sweet to bland and the many small seeds are gritty in quantity. Hedge and garden plants may have been sprayed or trimmed with treated equipment, and roadside hedges carry traffic dirt. Unripe green berries are astringent and best left.
Always use more than one reference to confirm a plant. You are responsible for what you choose to forage.
Flower
Hangs downward on a thin stalk, with four narrow scarlet sepals swept back from a short tube of deep violet petals. The stamens and single style hang well clear of the petals. Nothing else in a UK hedgerow flowers in this shape.
Fruit
An oblong to club-shaped berry 15–25mm long, green then deep purple-black, soft and slightly glossy. It sits on the same slender drooping stalk the flower hung from, so ripe fruit and open flowers are usually on the bush together.
Leaves and stems
Leaves are opposite or in whorls of three, oval, pointed, finely toothed and often flushed red along the veins. Stems are thin, reddish and flaky-barked on older growth, arching rather than upright.
Taste test
A ripe berry is soft, juicy and mildly sweet with a slight peppery finish and a gritty seed mass. Firm green fruit is drying and astringent — a sign to leave the bush a few more weeks rather than to reject the plant.
Updated 2026-08-07T20:52:26.913Z · Part of the shared Foragers Log catalogue · Other