In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
In message
,
harry writes

Cyanide is also called bitter almond pison, guess why?
Many plants and seeds have poisonous parts to discourage eating.
Apple and pear seeds also contain cyanide.
Virtually every flower you grow in the garden is deadly.

The way I put it is that "to a first approximation 100% of plants are
poisonous". But deadly would be an exaggeration.

Actually, it's an exaggeration, too. In the topics, it probably
is true, but it most definitely isn't in the UK.

In the UK, a HUGE number of plants have nothing more lethal than
tannins, to which mammals are essentially immune. In particular,
that applies to almost every grass and relative, almost everything
with serious thorns and many others. Yes, in an absolute sense,
almost all are poisonous - but so are almost all food plants!

Of, course, almost all of those are inedible and would give people
indigestion, but that's not the same.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.