Steve (SteveK at bitmap-brothers.co.uk) wrote:
>As a father with a 14 month old hungry child and a large collection of house
>plants, I am realising big dangers ahead.
>I have been looking around for information about how toxic various house
>plants are, without success. The biggest book shop in London couldn't help
>and now I've spent an afternoon on Internet (which, by the way, has
>introduced me to some *very* good sites) but only come up with 'toxic plants
>in Singapore'. Very good, but not much use in the UK!
>Can anyone give me pointers to anywhere on the internet I can find how
>dangerous my plants are, or any publications on the same subject.
K.F. Lampe gives an excellent discussion of toxic substances produced by
plants and fungi in chapter 23 of Cassarett and Doull's Toxicology, The
Basic Science of Poisons, 4th ed., M. Amdur, J. Doull, and K. Klaassen,
Eds.
The toxicities of several common house and garden plants are covered in
this review, although the ingested amounts required to achieve toxic
effects are usually not specified. Being a new parent myself, my personal
favorite is the Dieffenbachia (dumb cane) -- a plant with a toxicity that
is not entirely undesirable if one has very vociferous youngsters. ; >)
.
Virtually yours,
Chuck
Dr. Charles A. Miller, rellim at mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu
Bionet.Toxicology Discussion Leader
Dept. Environmental Health Sciences
Rm. 374, Center for Bioenvironmental Research
School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Tulane University Medical Center
1430 Tulane Ave. Box SL29
New Orleans, LA 70112
Ph. 504-585-6942, Fx. 504-585-6939
