St. John's wort - be careful! Risk of confusion!

St. John's wort and Jacob's ragwort - very similar

The highly poisonous Jacob's ragwort is similar to the medicinal St. John's wort. Someone who does not yet really know St. John's wort and is looking for it in a meadow, for example, should be careful! At first glance, the poisonous Jacob's ragwort looks like St. John's wort. A closer look reveals that they are quite different.

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The reason Jacob's ragwort is so dangerous is because it contains alkaloids. Liver damage can occur after consuming this herb. In extreme cases, poisoning can be fatal. Both the leaves and the stems, roots and flowers are poisonous.

Different sheets

You can tell the difference between these two plants by looking at the leaves. St. John's wort has extremely distinctive leaves when you look at them closely. They have translucent, punctiform areas. When rubbed they give off a reddish juice.

The leaves of Jacob's ragwort are completely different from the small, egg-shaped, smooth-edged and oppositely lying leaves of St. John's wort:

greater
form a rosette in the first year
simply pinnate
bluntly pointed

Different flowers

While the flowering time of both herbs is the same, the flowers look different. Like St. John's wort, the inflorescence of Jacob's ragwort is richly branched. But the individual flowers look different. The flowers are composed of ray and tubular flowers. This makes the flowers of Jacob's ragwort more similar to those of daisies or marigolds.

It is also striking that the flowers of St. John's wort only have 5 petals. These are broad-round with him. Jacob's ragwort, on the other hand, has more than 5 petals. With him they are narrower and more elongated.