Jon,
I have no expertise in this area. All I know is that I'm growing a
garden next to where a pyracantha bush used to be and I am growing
tomatoes, cucumber, and parsely in amongst wild foxgloves and I'm here
to tell the tale. On the other hand, asbestos takes twenty years to
raise it's ugly head in the form of cancer. Life is inherently unsafe.
As long as I get my three score and ten, I will be a happy camper
(yikes! make that four score and ten).

Nature is a battle zone and it is full of disincentives, among them,
toxins. Fortunately, we have a liver whose function it is to protect us
from toxins in our food supply (such as lactating lettuce, and raw
mushrooms). Be prudent, but don't be paranoid.

I'm sure that someone, somewhere has the knowledge that you look for.
Pharmaceutical companies have been analysing botanicals for a long time
and these days if they find anything interresting (something they can
make a buck on), they'll patent it. Start with the biology department at
a local college. Teachers usually go beserk when they find someone who
actually wants to learn.

- Bill

"Here at the fountains sliding foot,
or at some fruit tree's mossy root,
casting my body's vest aside,
my soul into the boughs doth glide,
and there like a bird it sits and sings,
then whets and preens its' silver wings,
and till prepar'd for longer flight,
waves in it's plumes the varied light".
- The Garden,
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)


In article ,
"Jon ChicKen$ M@ster" wrote:

William L. Rose wrote:
Came in late on this but for some reason you think that Nerium oleander
toxins (organic compounds) have migrated to you soil and that it
persists there (like poly-chlorinate biphenyls) long enough to be picked
up by plants and actively transported across cell membranes.

Really, I had not thought to this fact. You think oleander toxins could
not remain in the soil enough time to be absorbed in such a toxic quantity?

The phloem,
as you must know, basically is the water pipe for plants. Other than
water, larger molecules (nutrients) have to be selected.

Yes I know.

The real test would be to grow some veggies with oleander and some
without. Gas chromatography would let you see the differences and column
chromatography would separate them out for you to characterize.


You think anyone make this kind of tests on plants and perhaps on the
Oleander too?

Listings that I've read refer to ingestion of oleander for toxic effects
in mammals, birds, reptiles. As long as you don't eat Monarch butterfly
there shouldn't be much of a problem.

Do you know what is the necessary dose to kill a man, or a child (maybe
this dosis cannot be stored in veggie leafs and tree fruits!?) ?


Anecdotally, I grow tomatoes and cucumbers around foxglove and I've
never got so much as a buzz :-(

:-)


- Bill

Thanks, Bill