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Happy May Day! There are all kinds of cute ideas for what you can do for your friends and family today, if you’re inclined to do that sort of thing. Martha’s got some flower cones and some green-friendly ideas by recycling tin cans and jelly jars into flower containers, but why not say it with poisonous flowers? Let’s turn May Day into a scary holiday like Halloween. Doesn’t this sound the plot to a terrible ’80s horror flick? “It all started with a bouquet of flowers… from HELL.”
Sorry, I digress. Today’s Quick 10 is about plants to avoid when you’re out frolicking in nature to put together your May Day baskets today. Because you’re all out doing that, right?
1. Oleander. Whatever element of surprise this deadly beauty had was probably ruined when Janet Fitch’s 1999 novel White Oleander got big: the mom in the story killed her womanizing boyfriend by smearing a concoction that included oleander sap all over his stuff (it was a movie too). I know, you’re skeptical: could that really kill someone? The answer: yep. Small amounts can be lethal or nearly lethal for adults, and you definitely want to keep kids and pets away from it. It’s pretty uncommon around these parts though: less than 1,000 cases of oleander poisoning are reported in the U.S. every year. In places like Sri Lanka, suicide by oleander seed is becoming way too common because the pretty plant grows wild by the roadside. People have started taking it for trivial reasons because it’s so easy to get; one doctor reported that a teenage girl ate a seed because her mother refused to take her shopping.
2. Zantedeschia. If you think this looks like a Calla lily, that’s ’cause it is. Every part of this plant is toxic, but only if ingested – so if you’re planning on having them in your wedding bouquet or something, don’t worry. Touching the stem isn’t going to kill you. If you take it home as a post-wedding snack, that’s when you’re in trouble: eating the Zantedeschia species has been the death of both livestock and children. Symptoms include swelling of the mouth and throat, acute vomiting and diarrhea.
3. Hellebore. There’s a good reason it pops up when authors need to make witches concoct potions and powders since it has been known for its toxic properties since ancient times. At least, “black” hellebore (aka Christmas Rose) has been – it causes everything from vertigo and thirst to swelling of the throat and cardiac arrest. But it’s also used in some remedies; some historians think Alexander the Great was taking medicine with hellebore in it and may have accidentally overdosed on it. It was also used in the First Sacred War between the Amphictyonic League of Delphi and the City of Kirrha – Solon of Athens added a bunch of hellebore to Kirrha’s water supply and supposedly the city was so incapacitated with diarrhea that they couldn’t fight back when Solon’s troops invaded.
4. Fool’s Parsley is related to poison hemlock. If you’re trying to off someone, though, it would be pretty silly to use Fool’s Parsley because it’s easily detected. It can inflame the eyelids and makes the stomach lining very red and irritated. But like hellebore, it has its good side, too: a really diluted form of the plant can help stop seizures in little kids.
5. Water dropwort. They look a lot like parsnips, which is why a group of people found a cluster of them growing in a stream in Argyll, Scotland, and took them home to throw them in a curry. Everyone who ate the curry was terribly sick 10 hours later; one of them even had seizures and started hallucinating. Eventually the cause of the illness was discovered and everyone was treated appropriately. It’s a good thing they only consumed the tiny amounts in the stew – eating ONE whole root has been known to kill livestock as big as a cow.
6. Purple Nightshade. It’s partly the fault of this lavender sprout that the tomato was thought to be a bad guy for many years (they’re both part of the Solanaceae family, along with eggplant, chili peppers and belladonna).
7. Mescalbean. It’s very pretty, but as little as one seed from the mescalbean can kill you. It also causes hallucinations, as you might have guessed, since “mescalbean” sounds an awful lot like “mescaline,” the drug Aldous Huxley and Aleister Crowley both experimented with. However, the drug may not be related to the plant. The drug comes from the peyote cactus and other members of the cacti family; the name has been a source of confusion for many years.
8. Hemlock is another one that can easily be mistaken for an edible root or herb – the leaves look like fennel or parsley and the roots look like parsnip. I love all of the names associated with it: Poison Hemlock, of course, but also Devil’s Porridge, Beaver Poison and Poison Parsley. A very small amount of this stuff can be lethal, so it makes sense that it was used in ancient Greece to kill people. It’s how Socrates died, actually. When he was found guilty of “impiety” – corruption of youth and disbelief in the appropriate gods – he was forced to drink hemlock poison, which first paralyzed him and then killed him. Red spots on hemlock are sometimes referred to as “the blood of Socrates” because of this.
9. Death Camas. So many poisonous plants look like something commonly edible – it’s like God (or whatever you believe made the plants) decided to make the two things similar and let Darwinism take care of the rest. Death Camas look suspiciously like onions, but luckily, they don’t smell like them. That should be your one saving grace if you’re ever out hiking in western America and stumble upon one. All parts of the plant are poisonous, not just the root, although the bulb is the most fatal part: eating just one can cause death. It’s known to fell livestock pretty easily – it takes just 2% of an animal’s body weight to be a lethal dose.
10. Belladonna. It’s a baaaaad plant (shut your mouth). It’s one of the plants that were used to create poisoned arrows back in the days of early man, and was frequently used in ancient Rome to get rid of people – Emperor Augustus fell to it when his wife allegedly poisoned him and Macbeth of Scotland used it to poison opposing troops. Back when people believed in witches, they were also pretty sure that the witches used some sort of belladonna mixture to make themselves fly. Oh, and it’s called belladonna because women used it to make themselves more beautiful (”bella donna” is Italian for “beautiful women). Using an extract of belladonna directly in the eyes dilated the pupils, which was apparently a sign of beauty in ancient times.
Have you ever eaten something you wish you hadn’t? I remember once I found some R.C. Cola out in my parents’ garage and drank some. To this day, they keep a fridge in the garage full of nothing put pop and beer, so I thought nothing of the two-liter bottle sitting in the garage (on the counter next to the fridge, mind you). I mentioned something about it later and my dad said, “You didn’t DRINK that?!” And I said of course I did, to which he replied, “Well, it had motor oil in it. But you look like you’re going to survive, I guess.”
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Oh!!! You drank Motor oil?? Well I’m just glad you’re still around, Stacy!
The worst thing I’ve ever had to drink was when I was in the cafeteria in highschool. (long, long time ago.) I doubt I’ll ever forget this for as long as I live. It was a sunny spring day, and I was sitting with my friends and we were talking and laughing. While talking, I opened up the milk carton I purchased with my lunch. I didn’t think to check it, I just pried it open, put it to the lips and tilted my head back to take a swig…
a nice, giant swig of thick, chunky, sour milk.
I ran to the drinking fountain to clear my mouth out and ended up vomiting right there in the cafeteria. How mortifying.
Here’s a fitting reCaptcha: Squirmy March
posted by Ophelia on 5-1-2009 at 3:50 pm
My grandmother kept a potted Oleander plant when I was a little kid; I remember being told to stay away from it because it was poisonous. It sat outside the kitchen door all summer, near one of her rock gardens, and was taken into the front room during the winter. She had it for years. It was pretty to look at; I thought it looked sort of like a palm tree, and it had creamy white blossoms. I wanted so badly to pick some of those pretty flowers!
posted by Mama9cats on 5-1-2009 at 3:53 pm
There’s a story in one of Alfred Hitchcock’s short story collections about an elderly lady who banks on the fact that most people don’t know flowers or their properties very well in order to slyly kill one person in her town every year, a person whom she believes is breaking one of the ten commandments.
She gathers these flowers and puts them in 10 May baskets. One basket, the victim’s, has the killer flower to which she “helpfully” hints certain properties to in her included note. Then she hangs them on the various doors of her town. And a few days later, someone dies…
Judgemental old biddy.
posted by Brooklynperson on 5-1-2009 at 3:58 pm
@Ophelia – the exact same thing happened to me!!! When I went to return it and get my money back, they refused to believe that it had gone wrong because the ‘best before’ date was in two weeks. I couldn’t believe it.
posted by Jenny on 5-1-2009 at 4:02 pm
One of my husband’s coworkers when we lived in TX took a big swig from his water jug while driving across town one day, only to find a cockroach had been in the mouthpiece of his water jug. The cockroach was now in his mouth… surprisingly he did not wreck the vehicle! Still gives me the willies, that one!!! Ugh!
posted by Kristi on 5-1-2009 at 4:51 pm
My parents have enormous oleander bushes in their backyard. It’s the most beautiful plant but they were concerned when they got a dog that eats everything. It was the only plant he wouldn’t eat.
posted by natalie on 5-1-2009 at 4:57 pm
Back in the day, I drank Coke 24/7 and would frequently leave an open can on my nightstand in case I got thirsty in the middle of the night. Well, one night I took a giant swig and thought that it was funny that the Coke tasted like I’d put pepper in it. I went back to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning, I saw that the can was covered in ants…which explained the peppery taste. Needless to say, I haven’t had a Coke since that night.
posted by Corinne on 5-1-2009 at 5:01 pm
After a keg party back in college I awoke in the morning rightfully fuzzy and dehydrated. There was a stainless steel pitcher in the fridge we always kept filled with kool-aid. The ice cold sugar drink was exactly what I needed. I grabbed it, took of the lid and guzzled from the container. God knows why, but someone had filled it with root beer schnapps during the party the night before. It made for an interesting morning.
Another note – anyone who chews tobacco has taken the unfortunate sip from a spittoon at least once. And likely their wife/girlfriend has as well — be thankful you are sill alive. I know I am. (But that’s old days. Quit around eight years ago.)
posted by EV on 5-1-2009 at 5:04 pm
i think every house i’ve lived in (15 ish or so) has had oleadners. i think they are ugly, and knowing they are poisonous makes me want to remove the ones in my front yard even more.
oh, and EV – i don’t know any chewers, but i know plenty of peoply who have drank out of a drink with a cigarette butt in it. myself included. i could have killed the guy who put that out in my dr. pepper. yuck.
posted by tiffany on 5-1-2009 at 5:28 pm
While rooming with a natural remedies enthusiast, I drank a glass of lobelia extract thinking it was water someone had left in the fridge. Lobelia is also known as “pukeweed” and “vomitwort”. Blech.
That same roommate once convinced me to eat a tablespoon of cayenne pepper to rid my body of a cold. Blech + yikes.
posted by Bryan on 5-1-2009 at 5:35 pm
I ran into a woman in the emergency room who had temporary blindness from trimming her oleanders and then rubbing her eyes with sap on her hands.
posted by Antinous on 5-1-2009 at 6:19 pm
Your eyes dilate when you’re in love, so having dilated pupils makes you (subconsciously) more attractive to the opposite sex (or same sex if you prefer). Hence the belladonna in the old eyeballs. Yikes.
posted by Amanda on 5-1-2009 at 7:02 pm
My mom has SO MANY houseplants! She always warned me about the philodendrons around the house, so I never messed with them. We had a puppy, however, that apparently knew the properties of the plant. When he was teething, he chewed just enough of the philodendron to numb his mouth, but not enough to close his throat or kill him. Smart dog, that.
posted by Kieran on 5-1-2009 at 7:21 pm
My husband and I prefer different types of tea, his sweet and mine not, so when we make iced tea it’s usually not sweet. To make up for this, my husband makes a simple syrup, put it in a water bottle and adds it to his tea whenever he wants it. I didn’t know this had been made one day and chugged what I thought was water. I got a mouth full of sugary substance that was so sweet I gagged for a good minute. Who puts a watery looking substance in a water bottle and doesn’t label?
posted by Tricia on 5-2-2009 at 12:24 am
Sounds like everyone has had those moments..
I can remember a few good ones, actually.
Once, when I was 12, I was babysitting and got the kids and myself some glasses of chocolate milk. I sat down at the kitchen table to drink mine and looking into the glass as I was drinking I saw what I thought was a lump of chocolate powder. I stopped just in time to realize it was actually a cricket that had jumped in the glass!
When I was about three years old, my “best” friend (the things we let people talk us into) dared me to eat the anthill in my front yard, claiming I didn’t have the guts to touch the ants. I scooped up a handful of ant mound, ants and all, and ate the whole thing. Tasted like dirt, and it didn’t seem to hurt me. Good thing they weren’t fire ants! My mom has always mourned my lack of ability to avoid peer pressure :)
My last one is not quite as good, but still funny.
@Bryan: My current best friend has studied a lot of herbal medicine and made me a number of home remedies at one point, that I was storing in the pantry. My husband came home with a really bad cough from grad school one day, and I decided to help him out. I handed him a medicine dose cup with a teaspoon of Sundew extract in it (in an ethanol matrix). He thought it was cough syrup and swigged it down — only to find out that the alcohol was in the cup! Surprised the H*** out of him, but it definitely cleared up his cough 5 minutes later!
reCaptcha: potable source
posted by Anastasia on 5-2-2009 at 2:26 am
Try curdled goat milk in an old coffee can! I was in the the mountains of Colombia and was offered a drink by my host. Fresh, warm goat milk in a rusty can with curd rings on the inside from the previous level. MMM…good!
posted by NT4thBook on 5-2-2009 at 6:15 am
Oh yuck. Many moons ago I was kitchen staff at a sleepoer camp. Once a week we made Pop Tarts for the kids; whatever they didn’t eat we threw on a plate for us to snack on later.
One afternoon after a Pop Tart breakkie, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a Pop Tart and stuffed it into my mouth. And it tickled. That’s when I actually looked at what I was eating; the ants had found and were swarming the Pop Tarts. Which meant I had a mouth full. Urgh.
You know, I totally forgot about that. Till I read this article.
posted by Alli on 5-2-2009 at 4:15 pm
The worst thing I ever ate- when my son was about 18 months old we were eating take out chinese. He help up his hand with what I thought was gravy on his fingers. I told him to lick his fingers, he just looked at me like I was crazy. I said “It’s good, see?”, got some on my finger and put it in my mouth. To realize that it wasn’t food, he was trying to tell me he had pooped and over flowed his diaper.
My husband wouldn’t kiss me for 2 days after that.
posted by Kathy on 5-2-2009 at 11:38 pm
Oleanders require little water, will grow in most soil and weather conditions, propagate easily, provide excellent erosion control in desert areas, are efficient wind breaks and privacy hedges and grow very rapidly.
They are EXTREMELY poisonous because they thrive on carbon monoxide. You will see them growing happily alongside southern California’s nastiest freeways, adorned in delicate pink or white blossoms, doing their best to gobble up toxic emissions.
*on a side note: while sitting around a campfire with several friends, I did have a big ol’ June bug land in my icy cold beer. The invader went unnoticed for a minute or two, stifled by cold Dos Equis or the near-drowning experience.
Absentmindedly, I reached for the beer and took a swig … … at which time the inebriated June bug vaulted to freedom.
Witnesses still recall the incident, and my manic dance around the campfire, with unabashed glee. The Park Rangers? Not so much.
posted by Bobby on 5-3-2009 at 12:07 pm
When I was a very very small child, my mother once found me sitting next to a ripped-open stuffed animal, eating the little plastic pellets from inside it. Luckily I didn’t eat enough to get sick.
The WORST eating experienc eof my life was with my first Krispy Kreme doughnut. It was a crazy chocolate thing we got at the drive-through window and I was super excited about it. I took the first bite, pulled the rest of the doughnut away from my mouth, and a cockroach jumped out right onto the floor of my dad’s car. I screamed and freaked out, it was horrifying.
posted by Becky on 5-3-2009 at 3:41 pm
“A is for Alibi”, the first in Sue Grafton’s series of mysteries, also featured an oleander poisoning. And (much) more recently the last “Sit Down, Shut Up” episode had an opening segment where the flower-childy teacher Miracle joyfully distributed spring flowers that turned out to be hemlock…
Slightly surprised that lily of the valley, that archtypical spring flower — indeed sometimes called May Lily or May Bells, and (as Wiki tells us) traditionally sold on the street in France on May 1st — didn’t make this list, as all of it is highly poisonous. But when one stops to consider all the pretty garden plants that are poisonous it make one shudder to walk through a nursery!
posted by VM on 5-3-2009 at 6:31 pm
I was actually given a prescription for belladonna for some stomach issues I had. Obviously, it wasn’t as potent as the stuff that will kill you, but I remember thinking it was very odd. I had read about belladonna as a poison before. It actually worked really well, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it unless it’s prescribed to you. Like I said, this was a prescription pill. It wasn’t just a plant I ate or made a tea from.
posted by Jessi on 5-4-2009 at 2:45 pm