"Sacha" wrote in message
o.uk...
Neil Jones13/4/04 1:02


"Sacha" wrote in message
o.uk...
Sacha12/4/04 10:11



6.fs
net.co.uk

This is an alphabetical listing of poisonous plants:


http://www.powen.freeserve.co.uk/Ref...ison%20a-m.htm

It runs to 7 pages. ;-)

I got ahead of myself there - 7 pages is just A to M. A to Z is 12
pages!
--

Sacha
(remove the weeds to email me)



A lot of these seem to be rated 1 ie non-toxic. How many pages is it
if
you exclude these?


I'll leave you to explore that.

How kind.

I went to Google and typed in poisonous
plants, with a UK bias, of course. And that was the answer. This
means
that to some extent, all those plants are toxic in varying degrees.

My point is that according to the same site, toxicity of 1 means

"1. Non-toxic: These plants are not poisonous or there is no known
record of toxicity. Exposure to these plants is not expected to cause
any symptoms "

So the "varying degrees" seem to range from potentially fatal to totally
innocuous.

And the
question most people ask is "are these plants toxic?" not "will these
plants kill my children, poison the dog or merely give us a severe
skin
reaction?"

I don't find it helpful to be told that Pachysandra terminalis is a
toxic plant, only to find that the it is rated as non-toxic. Maybe it's
just me, but if I see a list of poisonous plants, I expect them at least
to be poisonous to some degree.

The RHS Encyclopedia gives some such details but not for all plants.
If
people want a garden in which they can be certain that no smallest
degree of
harm can come to anyone in it, they're going to find it problematic.

Clearly such an expectation is misconceived.

I know someone who nearly died of septicaemia after pricking his
finger on a
rose thorn that had been sprayed by some nasty chemical. Few people
ask if
such things will endanger their lives!

So now you seem to be saying that this list is even less useful?