Toxic Lovelies

Written by Lynn Pitts

What does this famous phrase mean? “Nam et ipsa scientia potestus est.”

A) “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

B) “Knowledge is power.”

C) “I drink no more than a sponge.”

If you said B, you are correcto mondo (and old enough to remember when Latin was a language requirement in school)! It wouldn't be an overstatement to apply this old adage to plants. Knowledge truly is power in our Bakersfield gardens, especially if you have children. It’s important to know the names of toxic plants. It’s also worthwhile to understand how plants have influenced world events, if only to entertain dinner guests. Let’s take a “power walk” through the garden.

First of all, it would be great if the list of poisonous plants was short and sweet. It isn’t. Some plants affect us if we eat them; some if we merely touch them; some have toxic sap, but the leaves are safe. Sometimes, the fruit is poisonous raw, but not when cooked. The most important advice Mrs. P can give you is: don’t panic. Try to learn the names of your plants and their potential toxicity. Teach your children from an early age not to put plants in their mouths. Know your poison, keep plant labels, write down plant names and where they are planted, and keep the list near the phone. Keep the Poison Control Center number handy. In Bakersfield, the number to call is (800) 876-4766.

You can also buy a reference book to learn more. Three books I’ve seen are: Common Poisonous Plants and Mushrooms of North America by Nancy J. Turner and Adam F. Szczawinski; Baby-Safe Houseplants and Cut Flowers by John I. Alber and Delores M. Alber; and Know Your Poisonous Plants by William R. James and Wilma Roberts James.

Keep bulbs and seeds away from children. Many of them are poisonous. Mrs. P assumes you know about the “Big Ten” toxic plants, but it’s always good to refresh our little gray cells. Oleander, tomatoes, potatoes, rhubarb, delphinium, boxwood, pyracantha, fig, foxglove, and castor bean can be as welcome as skunks at a garden party.

All parts of oleander are poisonous if eaten. Wear gloves and long sleeves when pruning oleander. I speak from experience in telling you that the sap from this beautiful shrub can cause a mighty itchy rash. Don’t even get me started telling you what will happen if you get the sap into your eyes! Oh, the memory of that sorry experience still makes me shudder. Dispose of oleander cuttings in your brown can, not the green waste can. The city trash collectors have rules about oleander which you must follow diligently. Almost everything on a tomato and potato plant is poisonous except the actual tomato and potato. Rhubarb’s leaves are toxic and should be cut off before the stalk is cooked. Delphinium and boxwood are toxic. The leaves and sap of fig trees cause dermatitis. Foxglove (digitalis) leaves help regulate heartbeats, but the effective dose and lethal dose are scarily close. Castor bean (Ricinus communis) is an amazingly attractive shrub that reaches 15 feet tall with colorful leaves and darling husks. The husks contain seeds. Commercial growers chemically extract the castor oil from the seeds. You, on the other hand, could end up dying if you eat the seeds. Nefarious people have concocted the poison “ricin” from this plant. Need I say more?

Poison centers receives thousands of calls a year from anxious parents. Thankfully, there are very few fatalities. Most of the children don’t even have to make a trip to the hospital. Poison centers have experts in toxicology to advise you about antidotes. The small number of people who do die tend to be adults who have eaten mushrooms. In fact, consider all mushrooms poisonous unless purchased from a grocery store. If you see mushrooms sprouting in your garden, it’s a sign you are watering too much. Put on a pair of disposable gloves and remove the mushrooms to your green waste trashcan.

There are myths about berries, which can be especially confusing to children. They know they can eat blueberries, so why not eat those blue berries on the ivy or Texas waxleaf privet? Many adults still follow the old myth that says if berries are white you should leave them alone. If the berries are red, maybe they’re okay. If they’re blue, it’s fine to eat them. Not so! Those berries on the ivy and privet, if eaten, can definitely ruin your day. It’s almost impossible to avoid all poisonous plants in a garden. This is why you should arm yourself with the power of knowledge. Your motto should be “awareness” rather than “avoidance.”

Now that you’ve become more enlightened about harmful plants, Mrs. P would like to share how some plants have contributed to world history. Can you name five plants grown in Bakersfield that were found in King Tut’s Tomb? Try bachelor buttons, papyrus, olive, willow, and oleander. Could the young king have been poisoned by oleander? Hmmm.

Three plants were instrumental in causing wars. Do you know them? Hint: one is a major crop in Kern County. The first was tea, a symbol of taxation without representation. The Boston Tea party set the stage for our American Revolution. The second plant to cause a war was cotton. We’re so used to seeing machinery harvest our excellent Kern County cotton, it’s easy to forget that slaves were used to handpick this crop in the Old South. The world-wide demand for more slaves to pick more cotton set the stage for the Civil War. The opium poppy was behind the Opium Wars (1839-42 and 1856-60) with England and France on one side and China on the other. In truth, the world is still fighting over the pods of this beautiful flower.

What two plants helped spread the ideas and philosophies of major civilizations? That would be olive trees and papyrus. Olives and olive oil were the chief export of ancient Greece and, through their trade, the Greeks spread ideas that became the foundation for Western civilization. Mediterranean natives, olive trees are trademarks along streets and gardens in Bakersfield. Olives and olive oil have been important crops in California since the Spanish introduced them. Green or black, olives are inedible unless pickled in brine or pressed into oil. Not many people know this, but Mrs. P has actually cured her own olives and they were delicious. Some years ago, after an especially violent wind storm, my next door neighbor and I noticed all the olives from our trees had been knocked to the ground in one fell swoop. Not wanting to waste such a bounty, we gathered them up and called our University of California Cooperative Extension for information on how to prepare them for eating. It wasn’t difficult, but time consuming; changing the brine constantly, rinsing, re-brining over and over. After the last brining, we packed them with fresh herbs and olive oil into sterilized glass canning jars. We thought we’d have plenty of jars to give away as gifts, but, honestly, we ate most of them ourselves!

The Egyptians and Phoenicians made paper from papyrus and this ready source of writing material helped promote and spread literacy in the ancient world. Usually seen growing locally in water gardens, they make a striking form in pattern iron planters and pots. Be careful with papyrus as it can become invasive in the ground. I made a huge mistake not keeping my papyrus contained and spent way too many years continually digging up the new clumps.

And, finally, what indigenous grain of the Americas is the most widely distributed crop in the world? Corn. Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to grow corn and it saved their lives. Columbus introduced corn to Europe. One of the traditional Native American methods of growing corn is called “three-sisters gardening.” It’s a wonderful space-saving technique combining a mixed “hill” of corn, beans, and squash. We can use the three-sisters approach this month in our Bakersfield gardens. Here’s how to do it. Plant four corn seeds in one quarter-sized hole on a mound of soil 15 inches wide and 4 inches tall. This is your “hill.” When the corn is up about a foot, plant four pole bean seeds on the shoulders of the corn mound about halfway in. Next, plant winter or summer squash seeds around the perimeter. The beans use the corn as poles to climb on and store nitrogen in the soil to feed the squash crop that follows. The large leaves of the squash shade, lower moisture loss, and cool the soil. Genius! Use half garden soil and half compost for building your mound. You have my permission to deviate from the original Native American practice of burying a dead fish under the corn. Feed your “three-sisters” with a liquid fish fertilizer and they won’t know the difference.

In closing your plant history lesson, what plant is the greatest boon to humanity? No contest. It’s the product of beans from the Theobroma cacao tree. Chocolate! Class dismissed.

Photos ©istockphoto.com/Bliznetsov/alxpin/diane39

Article appeared in our 28-2 Issue - June 2011