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.
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
SEE ALSO Blogspot QUACK QUACK August 3, 2011
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