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The story
In Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, a married couple mistook the bulb of “Gloriosa,” an ornamental plant growing in their own yard, for a yam, chopped it up, mixed it into okonomiyaki, and ate it — resulting in food poisoning. Gloriosa contains a toxic compound called colchicine that inhibits cell division, and cases of people accidentally eating it are apparently not rare. On the 5ch thread, posters expressed shock that anyone could mistake a plant with such flashy red flowers for a yam, while others pointed out that yam and Gloriosa bulbs can be distinguished by “whether or not they have fine root hairs” — all of which highlighted just how easily their visual similarity leads to this kind of mix-up.
Sat, Oct 17, 12:07 PM
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A married couple in Hamamatsu City developed food poisoning after mistaking “Gloriosa,” growing in their own yard, for “yam” and eating it.
Source: topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp / Original article here
What people said
swaying in the dappled sunlight~♪ (song lyrics)
Yes! Yes!
( °∀°) That's "glorious" (pun on "Gloriosa")
( °∀°) Here, have some mineral water (lol)
(/◎＼) *glug glug*
( °3°) You don't have to be from "Hame-matsu" (a crude pun on Hamamatsu) to know that knowing which weeds are edible matters, y'know?
( °∀°) Here, have some mineral water (lol)
(/◎＼) *gulp*
— yeah, that's just not how it works
If it were wild yam (jinenjo) there'd be a slim chance, but not with regular yam
Hamamatsu stretches from untamed mountains in the north down to the coast in the south, so maybe for some people "yard" basically means "mountain." Wild yam does actually grow there, after all
Wait, does that mean eternal youth?! Does it cure cancer??
Spider lily roots are poisonous too, but apparently they can be made edible with the right prep.
Spider lilies were a famine-relief crop, after all.
The processing yield is just too low, though,
so nobody uses them for food these days.
My friend had a bad feeling about it and didn't eat any. Afterward, the rest of the family who did eat it apparently puked their guts out.
I always wondered what that toxic yam-lookalike could have been — this might be the answer.
(And both his parents are pharmacists, lol)
Probably oni-dokoro (Dioscorea tokoro)? Same genus as yam, but poisonous.
There's an exact match in Monster Strike too, minus the long vowel mark
The toppings are probably sakura shrimp, whitebait, and melon
Around Hamamatsu there's "Enshu-yaki," an okonomiyaki with chopped takuan (pickled daikon) mixed in
Right, it's baffling
The real things have one huge difference — whether they have fine root hairs or not — and that useless AI left it out, lol
Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health
Yam vs. Gloriosa bulbs (toxic)
https://www.tmiph.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/lb_iyaku/plant/yudoku-top/guroriosa/
Ah, I see — so Gloriosa doesn't have those fine root hairs
https://img.shuminoengei.jp/w=1200,h=1200,a=0,ir=auto,f=webp:auto,u=0/org_img/jpg/img_cache_d_260859_1_1446391026_jpg.jpg
That's basically a yam party right there
Is this Gloriosa?
Yep
I'd just boil this up and eat it
Guessing you've never actually seen a real yam
Goku: "Goriro-"
Chichi: "It's Glorio-sa"
For real?! That makes me respect DAIMA a little more
That's a rare experience, so once they recover, I'd love for them to share
Reminds me of an episode of "Sekai Gyoten News" where a mushroom fanatic ate a fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) on purpose, fully aware it was poisonous, just to verify the rumor that it's delicious.
He survived, but the conclusion was basically "eh, not exactly worth dying for."
Isn't the Hirasaka crew (Hirasaka Dori, a YouTuber known for eating wild and often dangerous foods) basically eating stuff like that all the time?
Eating it knowing full well it's poisonous is wild…
He staked his life on that challenge and the takeaway is just sad, lol
Background and Key Points
Gloriosa is a bulbous plant in the lily family, commonly grown as an ornamental in home gardens. Its bulb contains a toxic alkaloid called colchicine, and it’s known that accidental ingestion can cause poisoning symptoms such as gastrointestinal distress. It bears such a close resemblance to the tuber of the yam that accidental-ingestion incidents keep recurring — enough that institutions like the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health have set up dedicated warning pages about it. The identifying feature raised in the thread — “whether or not it has fine root hairs” — is in fact one of the distinguishing methods cited by specialist institutions, and it underscores the risks of foraging and cooking based on amateur judgment in settings where ornamental and edible plants grow side by side in the same garden. The report in question does not disclose the severity or course of the couple’s symptoms.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “[Shizuoka] Couple in Hamamatsu mistakes toxic “Gloriosa” for “yam,” chops it up, puts it in okonomiyaki, and eats it — develops food poisoning.”
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