Poisonous Plants - A summary

hi ziggy ,i thought this would be a good place to ask ,

i own budgies ,and i tend to give them lilac wood to chew on ,but iv'e always taken the leaves off for fear of them being poisonous ,do you know if lilac leaves contain any poisonous compounds ??? I know the wood is defently safe for them

thanks R.C

 

Hi Ryan,

Lilac (Syringa) Leaves wouldn't hurt a human, but birds are different, they can eat things that would poison us & likewise things that we can eat might upset them, birds can't digest milk (Although that never stopped my chicken nicking my tea:DOH

Probably best to check it out on a bird forum

 

i asked on the bird forum but nobody seems to know :DOH: iv'e been researching everywhere but noboby knows if there safe or not. i was hoping you might :D but looks like i'll have to do more internet searches :DOH:.

 

Don't give em Lettuce

Keeping Budgies As Pets cage birds pet care trust although kept exercise outside

 

Chickens seem to have quite omnivorous tastes. I used to go to a pub which had a nice garden with chickens running around it. They would come and beg for a share of your drink but they knew their stuff. Only real ale would do; they avoided the rubbish stuff. After a good slurp they would stagger off into the bushes to sleep it off. They also liked potato crisps. Rather cruelly, a friend once fed them chicken flavoured ones.

 

A lot of our folk law is connected to plants containing various poisons. Of instance it's said that if you pull up a mandrake root you will hear it scream. And it is quite surprising the number of plants which do contain poisons .

 

Not really. There's several reasons why it makes sense for plants to be poisonous. The best example is self defence. Over millions of years of natural selection, the plant that is most likely to set seed is the one that hasn't been eaten. If you're one plant in a group of millions, and a passing prehistoric equivalent of a deer prefers the smell or taste of your neighbour's to you, then you get to grow on while you're neighbours get munched. Whatever it was that made you slightly different then gets passed on to your offspring so they too are less likely to get munched and so on.

Another good reason is again about survival, but not from being munched. Plants have had to adapt to a wide range of conditions, and to do that they have to be able to exploit the local resources. All plants need a similar range of nutrients, but those nutrients are available in widely varying measures in different soil types. In some soil types some vital nutrients are chemically locked up, so to get them, the plant (and the soil organisms it forms a symbiotic relationship with) has to do lots of chemistry in the root zone. Some of that chemistry produces 'byproducts' which to the plant are completely harmless but to us are quite nasty.

To me, it is more surprising that there are plants that are not poisonous. In fact if it wasn't for the symbiotic relationship we have with micro-organisms in our guts, plus of course the very complex filtering and extraction system that is our digestive tract, a lot of things we take for granted would be poison to us. In fact, we can't digest chlorophyll (the chemical that is in effect plant blood). Lucky for us that we've developed a system that allows us to reject some stuff that is no good to us. Oxalic acid is another one. Very common in lots of plants, including lots of common edibles. It is very poisonous to us. It binds with calcium in your blood stream making the calcium unavailable to us and also making it crystallise, so it can cause (or contribute to) kidney stones, gout, arthritis, osteoporosis etc. It will even kill dead in sufficient quantity. It is present in, among other things, brassicas.

 

well knock me down with a feather! if it isn't me ol' pal @ryan.c up there at the top of the page!

HELLO OLD BUDDY OLD PAL!

 

Sorry Honeybunny but he's not been on since oct 2011

 

oh no!

thanks anyway Zigs

 

A few years ago, we were having a BBQ right next to a Nerium oleander, and I must have inhaled the smoke, but I went light headed and started having a loss of breathing pattern... That showed me how toxic N. oleander actually is.

 

Many years ago I used to have my own website and I used to have a poisonous plant list but it was never as comprehensive as this one.
What I would like to mention is the Giant Hogweed. I know the sap can cause severe skin disorders when it is sunny so I think there are some plans to eradicate it forever. My concern is I just hope they don't get rid of the plant altogether and they keep the genus alive because it is very majestic and one of my favourite plants. If the plants are kept in a controlled environment then people shouldn't come to any harm as they are only dangerous when it is sunny and when people touch them.

 

Here is a link to a very comprehensive list - Frightening or what?

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poisonous_plants

 

Sorry to dig up an old thread but there's a bindweed-like plant that is missing off the list and is worthy of attention, should you ever come across it.

It's commonly known as Black Bryrony/Black Bindweed (Dioscorea communis). It looks rather similar to Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium) but is an altogether nastier beast. The leaves have a heart-shape like common bindweeds but with a more pointed tip that makes them look rather sinister. They are also usually a much lighter when the berry stage deve shade of green, sometimes with a yellow hue, usually when the berries appear after the flowering stage, around. The flowers are a yellowy green and the berries turn from green to a bright red towards late summer.

Mature plants, including berries are seriously poisonous when ingested (as so many plant species are!) but more alarmingly, it can cause severe skin irritation/blisters if the sap is in contact with skin, so be careful when triming hedges that may contain this plant.

The rhizomes can reach depths of up to 16ft and are seriously hard to kill off. A non-herbicidal approach may take years of 'a war of attrition'.

Interstingly though, the tender spring shoots are a delicacy in some Southern European countries but have to be cooked thoroughly. I wouldn't eat it though, having had a few battles with it. The appearance of arrow-shaped leaves alone give me goosebumps; it's a evil-looking wild plant to say the least. A pic of the flowering stage to help differentiate it from hedge bindweed, which can look somewhat similar as new leaves mature.

 

WHY? I often wonder why people feel guilty digging up old threads...particularly if they contains information of great value and a lot of imputs.