In message , Nick Maclaren
writes

In article . com,
"a.c." writes:
|
| Over the years I've worked alongside people, adults, with varying
| degrees of susceptibility to plant poisons.
|
| Euphobias were relatively successful in causing skin irritations.

An amusing typo!

| Rue, on the other hand, affected anyone in contact with it and even got
| to me, which surprised me.

Interesting. I react little to it.

| On a different angle, fremontodendron is covered in tiny, almost
| glass-like-invisible shards. It's a lovely plant which flowers very
| well for such a long time that I wondered why it was not more popular.
| Then one day I found out when, presumably, I rubbed my eyes whilst
| de-heading some of its flowers and by the evening my eye was glued up.
| The following day it was even more glued up and I had to go to an
| optician. Not exactly a chemical burn, or the deadly-poisonous
| catogory, but unpleasant enough in my experience.

Now, that's worth knowing. Nasty.

Another reason for their lack of popularity might be hardiness; they're
usually OK on a south facing wall, but not necessarily elsewhere. My
came through the previous two winters unscathed, but has been severely
cut back by this winter. And, yes, one wants to be careful with the
hairs of Fremontodendron - they'll embed themselves in your skin like
cactus spines do.

Quite a few 'mallows' are a bit hazardous on contact. Lagunaria (Norfolk
Island Hibiscus) is notorious for the itching seed pod hairs. I've heard
mention of irritant hairs from several types of Hibiscus (possibly
Furcarias), though I'm not aware of how severe they can be. I've also
had a couple of reports of reactions to Lavatera, but this seems to be
to the sap.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley