Bryonia dioica, known by the common names red bryony and white bryony,[1] also English mandrake or ladies' seal,[2] is a perennial climbing vine indigenous to Central and Southern Europe.

Application of its juice to the skin produces inflammation with a rash or ulcers, and consumption of this juice causes intense gastrointestinal irritation including nausea and vomiting in small doses, and anxiety, paralysis, or death in larger amounts.

[citation needed] The seed of this vine, by contrast, is safely edible, and finds use in Western Europe as an ingredient in starch dishes.

In medieval times, the plant was thought to be an antidote for leprosy.

John Gerard's Herball (1597) states that: "The Queen's chief surgeon, Mr. William Godorous, a very curious and learned gentleman, shewed me a root hereof that waied half an hundredweight, and of the bignes of a child of a yeare old.