DON'T CRY FOR ARGENTINA

REVIEWING NON-POISONOUS PLANTS

People are impressed by the imprimatur of The Hospital for Sick Children coupled with that of the Toronto Regional Poison Information Centre. Who should know more about poisonous plants than they?
You would think so.

 I am not impressed. I am appalled.

We are told that Holly is ‘poisonous to humans’.
Do they mean the genus Ilex? There are over 900 species of holly and an equal number of hybrids and cultivated varieties. Are we to believe that they are all poisonous? The genus alone is still not good enough. Since Linnaeus in the eighteenth century plant names are binomials. The correct name has two parts, first the genus then the specific epithet.
 I am yet to be convinced that any species of Ilex is toxic; if any are we deserve to know which ones, and to be given their currently accepted scientific name in full. I say currently accepted names as right at this moment there are teams of taxonomists busily changing many names based on new knowledge that shows a plants proper place in the botanical family tree.

 Recently I wrote about the confusion over the use of Snake Berry as a common name when presumably they meant Actea rubra; now I must tell you that all your beautiful late summer highly fragrant Cimicifugas are now to be known as Actea. No doubt they will soon be added to the roster of poisonous plants.  But I digress.

Back to Holly, the genus Ilex. How, you might wonder did they ever get their bad reputation? Where do these stories come from? Perhaps they had heard of the ‘black drink’ that native Americans used to make themselves vomit as a cleansing ritual before going into battle or as a religious rite. This was an extra strong infusion using the leaves of Ilex vomitoria (good name) the only North American plant that I know of that has a caffeine content. Early European settlers did not care much for the throwing up part so they enjoyed a much milder brew that they called Yaupon tea.

 The caffeine beverage of choice in Argentina and Uruguay is Yerba Maté that uses the leaves of Ilex paraguariensis that is drunk with much ceremony through a silver straw that has a strainer on the wet end. They drink lots of it and don’t spew a drop.

SEE ALSO Blogspot QUACK QUACK August 3, 2011

 Yerba Maté is served in a gourd-inspired bowl and drunk through a bombilla.

POISON PENMANSHIP

POISON: A substance that causes death or serious injury to a living organism, especially when this happens quickly from a relatively small dose; it does not discriminate and its effects should apply equally to all.

By this definition, an allergen is not a poison, since it does not usually kill; it affects some but not others.

Poison Ivy is not poisonous and should more properly be Skin-Rash Ivy. About 15% of people are immune to its dangers. This makes the plant a very common hazard with 85% as potential victims. In most other allergic encounters with plant parts, the numbers are beyond the decimal point.

Some sufferers are so outraged and believing that since it happened to them, that it will happen to others, they alert the whole tribe. In fact they might only be one of a very sensitive few; perhaps uniquely so. One person whose complaint I found on the Internet was so angry at their allergic reaction to Foxglove (they got hives) that they demanded that it should be treated like smallpox and be eradicated from the planet.

People new to gardening must be quite concerned to see so many popular plants readily available at garden centres although they are “known to be poisonous to humans’. With some thought they come to realize that they cannot be all that poisonous or they would not continue to be sold. Obviously the plants have already passed through many hands, from the growers and propagators to greenhouse workers who prune, deadhead and cut back in daily close encounters. They quite rightly ignore the doomsayers and dodge the falling sky.
It has been pointed out to me that I do not find any poisonous plants among the 72 names as given in ‘Information for Families-Plant Safety’ and I do not define ‘poison’. Note that the Hospital does not offer a definition either and no information. Their intent seems to be to scare people into sticking to our familiar vegetables and not to eat garden ornamentals. I could endorse that thought, I suppose.
 I did not give them all a clean bill of health. Where I believed that there might be cause for concern I have tried to explain and to reassure that in normal usage any toxic content can be safely disregarded.
 In trying to inform I have done a great deal more than this poor effort from Sick Kids’.
Are there any poisonous plants on the list? Perhaps a couple that might qualify but how are families to know which ones out of this miscellany? I have no intention to add to a list derived from garbled folklore or the problems that farmers must contend with in animal husbandry nor when used as self-medication for self-diagnosed ailments.
I am outraged to see in a publication addressed to families with a home garden, a warning about the dangerous potential of Delphiniums and Larkspur based on some awareness that a couple of weedy types have proven harmful to grazing cattle in some western States. There are 250 species of Delphiniums including Larkspurs and as many or more cultivated varieties. They are not poisonous to humans, not even the few that can harm animals. We are not cattle. We do not consume by the bushel nor graze by the acre.

STAR OF BETHLEHEM

 
REVIEWING NON POISONOUS PLANTS

The Hospital for Sick Children tell us that Star of Bethlehem is 'known to be poisonous to humans'.
Campanula isophyla.The white form is pictured above.
  Eucharis x grandiflora (See the white lily at the bottom of the page.)
Ornithogalum thyrsoides (below)                                                 .

CHOOSE YOUR POISON
Three different plants that are all called
                           Star of Bethlehem.
They all have other common names which is not unusual. The Campanula is a Trailing or Italian Bellflower and also comes in blue.
The Eucharis is a natural hybrid with and sometimes called Amazon Lily. It grows from a bulb.
Ornithogalum has a rather quaint name that is fun to pronounce: Chincherincheree. It is another bulb, but from South Africa and very important as a cut flower much used in white-themed bridal bouquets. The individual flowers are in a compact truss, deliciously fragrant and very long lasting. I have not thought about Chincherincheree for years but if memory serves I do recall that the flowers close at night.
  
   So which Star of Bethlehem is deemed to be toxic? No, I am not giving out prizes. Just answers. It is the Chincherincheree and I am told that it is strong medicine that can violently affect the heart. Do remember that you are most unlikely to find the bulb and will have a hard time wresting the flowers away from the young lady that catches the brides well-aimed throw. We really don't need so many of lifes' pleasures spoiled quite needlessly by hyper-anxious know- it -alls.
   Thanks to air-freight this beautiful flower is shipped to florists every day,
by the thousands, with never an untoward incident.

WHAT SNAKE BERRY ?

REVIEWING NON-POISONOUS PLANTS

  Snake Berry in Toronto’s Sick Children’s list of poisonous plants meant nothing to me.

 I’ve asked other plantsmen but they don’t seem to know the term either. When I ran it through the Google search engine it was identified as Actea rubra. News to me. I know the plant very well but I know it as Red Baneberry. That is the problem with common names. Sometimes they are only locally common.

 Lots of plants have a number of common names and on occasion one common name is used for a few quite different plants.

  The A.M.A. Handbook gives Snake Berry as yet one more name for Solanum dulcamara, otherwise known as Bittersweet Nightshade which, if I had my way would be Climbing Tomato. On doing some more checking I do see that they list Actea rubra as Snakeberry, one word not two.

 Are you following me? Snakeberry is Actea and Snake Berry is Solanum.

   I trust that all this squabbling over names does not bring lids to your eyes; it is not trivial. As parents are being told that these plants are poisonous it would be very helpful to have their scientific names.

   Once we have established which plants we are talking about we can proceed to the matter of whether they are toxic. When you subject Red Baneberry, (Actea rubra) to chemical analysis it will show a high concentration of oxalic acid as we also find in rhubarb leaves and in lesser quantities, in many vegetables such as spinach. The word‘poison’is highly inappropriate. It takes excessive amounts or the accumulative effects of long-term usage to affect your health. The body handles oxalic acid by combing it with calcium to form calcium oxalate crystals which are processed by the kidneys and excreted in urine. Continued usage could result in calcium deficiency or to kidney stones

   The bright red fruit of Actea rubra will be attractive to an exploring child who, quite naturally will want to discover if they are sweet and juicy. They will be disappointed and just as naturally will spit them out. Children, as I am sure you know, are fussy eaters with all their sensitive taste buds still intact. They do not readily poison themselves.

 If anyone ever tells you they were killed by Snake Berry: do not believe them.

RHUBARB FOOL

REVIEWING NON-POISONOUSPLANTS

When I asked if it was alright to put horse manure on my rhubarb an old gardener said that would be fine but that personally he preferred custard.
 His jocular answer was better than the advice offered by Toronto’s Sick Kids’ Hospital as they warn us that rhubarbs’ large leaves are ‘known to be poisonous to humans.’

   Together with the Ontario Regional Poison Information Centre they publish an advisory called Information for Families – Plant Safety which is notable for its’ lack of information. Families are on their own.

   Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid that can combine with calcium to form painful kidney stones; but so do the leaves of spinach, Swiss chard, beetroot tops and a number of other popular food items such as peas and potatoes. Susceptible types will be much more likely to accrete stones in the kidney or bladder from a diet of spinach than from the unappealing greens of rhubarb.

Speaking for myself alone I must say that rhubarb is not high on my list of favourites. The closest I get is the occasional purchase of a strawberry & rhubarb pie; even then I find that it still calls for a custard topping. Nothing appeals from the rhubarb leaves.

 Anyway, poison is hardly the right word. It takes a steady diet of an offending food item consumed over years before it would result in kidney stones. And when it does, would you call it a poison?

   A hundred years ago during the First World War a government agency in Britain exhorted the people to be mindful of food shortages and “that children were starving in Belgium.” As example it was suggested that those who liked and used rhubarb should not discard the leaves as was the usual practice but to use them too as a vegetable. This provoked strenuous complaints from many who knew its’ reputation as a cause of kidney stones or otherwise had learned that it was deleterious or even poisonous. Once being taken to task for their bad advice they responded by issuing corrections which in fact greatly exaggerated the plants’ dangers as they sought to undo any harm that they had caused. These stories are still echoing today. You would think that after one hundred years we could get the story right. Obviously we cannot look to Sick Kids’ Hospital for solid science and sensible instruction. They apparently know little and care even less.

Recipes for RHUBARB FOOL at www.canadianliving.com