PEOPLE LOVE STORIES

People love stories and we like to talk. Each September we are condemned to explain once again that the pollen of Goldenrod is sticky and heavy and needs the services of an insect if it is to be transported to another bloom. It is not light and windborn. It does not provoke the symptoms of hay fever.
   At Christmas we need reassurance that the popular Poinsettia is not poisonous. It is these and hundreds of similar tall tales that I intend to explain and rebut.
The impetus that provokes me is the nugatory Information for Families - Plant Safety from Toronto's Sick Kids' Hospital.
   In my next blog I will provide you with a large list of plants that they say are 'known to be poisonous to humans'. Having read the list I pose these questions. Has it been helpful? Do you know these plants? Do you have them in your home or garden? Did you know that they were dangerous and what are you going to do about them?
   It would be my natural inclination to present them in alphabetical order by their scientific names but, and this is an important part of my complaint, I cannot be sure which specific plant is intended when only common names are used. In the one occasion where the scientific name is appended, they get it wrong!
   After you have studied the list and answered my questions I will take each item one at a time and try to tell their story and why perhaps they were ever on such a list.
   You might just find that the facts are more interesting than the fables that get told.
   Accidental deaths from plants are so few that the European Union does not collect statistics.      In the United States the annual number is five.
Parents should not be encouraged to fear plants in home or garden but to look under the kitchen sink with its' deadly arsenal of drain cleaners. bleaches and detergents.   Drugs and medicine whether prescribed or from the over-the- counter culture made carelessly available to toddlers are very real concerns. Brightly coloured pills including Dad's little blue ones must be tempting to a terrible two year old.