On 22/10/2019 09:39, Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:
On 21/10/2019 17:59, Another John wrote:

Thanks Martin - I thought you were on t something there when I saw the
first picture of pokeweed, with its purple stalks ... but it's not that.
Thank goodness! Sounds like a right nasty plant -- I like this bit from
the Wikipedia entry : "The leaves and stems of very young plants can
both be eaten, but must be cooked, usually boiled three times in fresh
water each time." It always gives me pause for thought, to reflect
that for most of human history, people have eaten (had to eat) whatever
they could find ... and that some poor sods found out the hard way how
their descendants needed to prepare certain foods!

It isn't all that bad and is quite ornamental. I got one spontaneously
appear in my garden when I lived in Belgium. It even set seed so I could
keep on growing it. Not at all invasive and quite a bit less toxic than
some of the other exotics that I like to grow.

Yes - people get uptight about a few poisonous plants, but there are
generally more poisonous ones that they ignore, and they aren't really
much of a risk, anyway. Laburnum is generally ignored, but is one of
the worst, as its seeds look exactly like mung beans.

I did get twitchy when someone brought a small child when I was growing
Gloriosa rothschildiana, though ....

When I visited the Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle there was one plant
that I couldn't abide being near. Henbane aka Hyoscamus niger. I could
smell the toxin in the air from its flowers and it was unpleasant.
(better than toothache I suppose if you were desperate)

http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/ato...amus_niger.htm

At least with Daturas and Brugsmanias the flowers usually smell gorgeous
even if the bruised stems smell terrible.

It had been a bad wet summer so several of the more interesting
semitropical specimens were dead mouldering brown stems. Best visited in
late summer after a long warm spell to see the most developed plants.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown