POISONOUS PEONIES. WHO KNEW?

According to the Ontario Regional Poison Information Centre, peonies are ‘not non-toxic’. Now there is a quibble if I ever heard one.

 The American Medical Association does not mention peonies in their Handbook of Poisonous or Injurious plants. Very few of the books in my growing library mention the peony; when they do it would be a casual remark that peonies have been used medicinally most usually in Chinese Medicine. Everything appears in the Chinese Pharmacopeia including bears gallbladder and powdered dragon bones and is not a resource that I would normally refer to.

     In a telephone query to the Poison Centre we were told that the toxic parts of peonies are the roots. This matches the advice in Chinese Herbal Medicine, (Daniel P. Reid (1990) distributed in Canada by Random House.) This cannot be where Sick Kids’ Hospital is getting their information, although it would explain a lot. The Chinese in fact, have nothing but good to say about peony roots. The skin of the tree peony root ‘has highly effective antiseptic action against a broad range of germs’. The whole root of the white peony is tonic to the blood and yin-energy. The red variety promotes circulation of the blood.

The Poison Information Centre warns that handling the roots can irritate the skin and eating them can cause diarrhoea and make you vomit. Quite right too. That’ll learn you. When the grandchildren visit be sure that the garden spade and digging fork are locked in the shed.

     The peony of southern Europe is Paeonia officinalis. The name does not refer to a modern office but that there was commercial trade in the plant as a medicinal herb. When you read between the lines and note how often it is recommended for increasing  blood flow; that the intention was ‘to bring on the menses’. In other words, to provoke an abortion. The Peony Formula is still well known and used in Chinese and in so-called traditional medicine.

     The staff at the Poison Information Centre did not mention this aspect and we did not bring up the subject with them.