GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - Why aren't tomatoes indigenous to the UK?

Stewart Robert Hinsley · 18-09-2010, 09:35 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening

In message
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writes
On 16 Sep, 23:06, "Spamlet" wrote:
"Stewart Robert Hinsley" wrote in
...

Derelict or lightly managed gardens are often the last refuge of wild plants
that have been mown, strimmed, and poisoned away by councils all over the
country, so do look out for anything that turns up: it may be a wild plant
from before your house was built. *In our garden for example we have
Potentilla anglica, which only grows in one other known site in the town,
and is endangered by scrub growth there.

Our local rag is reporting a gardener finding devil's trumpet (datura
stramonium) and "contacting ... Council to arrange for the plant to be
removed" as it "contains dangerous levels of poison". However,
Googling it reveals you can buy it on eBay from what look like
professional sellers, so presumably it can't be that bad and this is
largely a press scare story.

Datura stramonium (I know it as thorn apple) is one of the more
poisonous plants around. But people also grow Ricinus communuis,
Brugmansia suaveolons and Nerium oleander as ornamentals, and they may
be worse.
People use the seeds of Abrus precatorius to make jewellery.

But it does raise the question as to whether there have been any
occurances of gardeners chucking an unrecognised poisonous volunteer
on the compost heap and being seriously harmed then or a year later
when ingesting their next crop?

There might be exceptions (perhaps aminopyralid) but toxic chemicals are
generally broken down in compost heaps. People compost things like
rhubarb leaves, and potato and tomato tops

Chris

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Stewart Robert Hinsley