Berry identification, please

[Aparecium]

What are these berries? They are at the back of a bed that is dense shrubbery at all other times of the year.

Hard to see from the photo, but maybe Lords and Ladies?

@Aparecium need a good close up! also which country?

google thinks it might be stinking iris!

Iris seeds

Iris foetidis

Taken with the leaves, that looks like iris foetidus.

This. They are toxic but if you crush the leaves, they smell like roast beef.

Def stinking iris!

SE England. The pic is about as close as I can get without crawling under the shrubs. I'll post a zoomed-in pic.

My dc are old enough to leave well alone, but I have a cat. My general gardening philosophy is to leave well alone. Do I need to do anything about my stinking lords and ladies?

Lords and ladies are in an erect spike, and not in a pod

Iris foetidissima, not foetidis or foetidus. Stinking iris (the latin calls it “the most stinking”). Very beautiful flower, not showy, but worth taking a close look at. Cream/yellow standards and lavender falls with delicate veining.

I'd like to leave it where it is. Nice to have a little colour in the winter, and food for the birds.

But I ought to confirm whether it can poison cats just by touching them, like lilies can.

No. They would have to eat it.

Good, thanks.

Dcat is not overly endowed with brains, but that lily is growing in his current favourite hunting spot.

Pardon me for forgetting my Latin superlatives!

Agree with @MereDintofPandiculation - the flowers are not showy but the bees absolutely adore them

I wasn't criticising I had to look it up myself. But having looked it up it amused me that it wasn't "stinking iris" but "the most stinky iris". I've never smelt it myself (I think it may be the rhizome that smells) and I have heard it described as "roast beef". So the botanist who described it must have had a very acute and sensitive nose.

@MereDintofPandiculation, has it! Also known as Gladdon or Gladdon Lily

Some appeared in my garden a couple of years ago - I assume the seeds are spread by birds? - it really does have a meaty smell.

Presumably. It's one of our two native irises, although I don't think it's as common as the Yellow Flag.

I love discovering what the birds have brought me. As well as this most stinking iris, I have received a snowberry, a hawthorn, a cotoneaster, campanulas, redcurrants and tiny strawberries.

My neighbour's garden keeps trying to give me ivy, brambles and apple trees.

I prefer the birds' offerings!

You may regret the snowberry and the Cotoneaster

Why?

Because, given the right conditions (or anything close to them), they will strive for garden or world domination.

The cotoneaster grew up through the middle of an insanely rampant solanum, and I like it so much I've actually cut the front of the solanum away completely to allow the cotoneaster more space. The solanum is still climbing upwards behind the cotoneaster.

The snowberry is wedged between a very tall philadelphus and the solanum-cotoneaster combination. It's in its 4th year, I think, and it's not found its way out yet. But I'm warned!

But thanks for the warning