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Yew

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See my note on the talk page of "Taxus Baccata." (If "the seeds are especially poisonous and are quickly fatal when ingested," then I am a ghost!) Kostaki mou (talk) 02:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, you're a lucky guy. Yew seeds contain taxanes and they are potentially lethally poisonous. However, the amount of poison released/absorbed depends on whether or not the seeds are chewed or swallowed. If you don't chew, allot less toxin is released so you survive. See:
Appendino, G. (1993-04-01). "Taxanes from the Seeds of Taxus baccata". Journal of Natural Products. 56 (4): 514–520. doi:10.1021/np50094a010. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
The dangers of disseminating misinformation cannot be overstated. --Diamonddavej (talk) 20:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Apple seeds contain cyanide, too, but you need to eat an awful lot of them to be poisoned. There is indeed a lot of misinformation going around about toxicity. It is often said (falsely), that poinsettias are poisonous, for example. Can you document a case of illness or fatality resuling from eating yew seeds? (Of course, there remain other possibilities: The toxicity of the same species can vary and susceptibility can also vary. There are people for whom peanuts are deadly, for example.) Perhaps it's best to err on the side of caution.```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kostaki mou (talk • contribs) 21:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I did indeed chew it. I only ate one, though (at a time, at any rate.)Kostaki mou (talk) 22:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
P.P.S. Why are you so sure that I was lucky? Could it have been that, just maybe, my information was reliable? Kostaki mou (talk) 23:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Personal anecdotes are not admissible on Wikipedia, formation must be verifiable and preferably from a peer review source, read Wikipedia:Verifiability. See: "Businessman committed suicide by eating graveyard yew seeds after losing his wife and company"[1] --Diamonddavej (talk) 00:31, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I did not merely provide a personal anecdote (which I did not use in the article itself). I did indeed provide a source for my statements. There is certainly cause for further investigation in the matter. Kostaki mou (talk) 02:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of anecdotal evidence, I checked your footnotes 8 and 9. Footnote 8 refers to a suicide by ingestion of yew leaves. The article in question says that the woman ate yew twigs, not leaves. Footnote 9 refers to a suicide by ingestion of yew seeds. The article makes it clear that something like 400 seeds were ingested. Kostaki mou (talk) 02:27, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Juniper

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I've read that juniper leaves are irritating or poisonous. Mother said the berries were poisonous. Unfree (talk) 01:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Naked boys – see Arum maculatum."

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I'm no expert, but I can't find anything about a plant called "Naked Boys". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.255.95.203 (talk) 22:57, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you may be right. This site has a comprehensive list of the English common names for Arum maculatum, and it only lists "Naked Ladies". It might be that "Naked Boys" is a name used somewhere, but the article should only list the most commonly encountered ones; I'll change the article to remove the "Naked Boys" listing. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 04:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Garden plants

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It seems everything in my garden has poisenous properties. Is there antidote for any of these plants?Justjeanie (talk) 00:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)justjeanie.[reply]

Also,thank for the information.Justjeanie (talk) 00:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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POISONOUS PLANT TOPIC RELEVANCE AND CONFIRMITY

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MANY SITES ARE THERE IN GOOGLE RELATING POISONOUS PLANTS,. EVEN IN WHATSAPP AND FACEBOOK EVERYONE IS SHARING THIS AND MAKING CHAOS IN PEOPLE . PLEASE CONFIRM HOW DANGEROUS THESE PLANTS TO HUMAN AS IN EVERY HOMES THESE PLANTS ARE WILDLY USED. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16A2:8C94:D894:4C3A:5751:DC2E:B783 (talk) 07:08, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned references in List of poisonous plants

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I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of List of poisonous plants's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Block2010":

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 21:55, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is sweetness a guarantee of non-poisonousess?

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Mention if poisonous parts of plants are never sweet to the taste.Jidanni (talk) 01:41, 3 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Creation of category?

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Should we think about the creation of category for these plants? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.25.190.176 (talk) 13:03, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Biggest planet

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The biggest planet is SDSS j010448.46+153501 the raidus 629190km Hd100546b radius 62944km 95.64.81.188 (talk) 08:31, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Biggest star sepehr

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The biggest star 1 stefensen 2-18 diameter 4300 sun's 2 uy scuti diameter 3800 sun's 3 vy cans magoes 3700 sun's 3 ky cigyni 2450-4567suns 95.64.81.188 (talk) 08:35, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ficus "Ginseng" Microcarpa

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Hello, and thank you for putting up such a wiki site! I have 2 cats, one of which is obsessed with eating plants! Unfortunately, my roommate decided to try his hand at Bonsai Tree trimming and was told this is a wonderful "beginner-friendly" starter plant. What he wasn't told was that they are not even a ginseng-related plant: not Panax, not Eleutherococcus, and not edible by any species as relates to this site. So! It is in the Moraceae Family, and there are 2 types of this plant that fall under the "Ficus 'Ginseng' " name. The one that usually is being referred to when using the Ficus Ginseng moniker is the Ficus microcarpa. The other, Ficus retusa is also used as an indoor 'Bonsai' plant. Both are related to the Indian Rubber Plant or Weeping Fig, which is essentially known as Ficus sp.The toxic components found primarily in the leaves are: ficin, a proteolytic enzyme, and ficusin, also called psoralen. The plant is considered toxic to dogs, cats, and horses, according to the Google Play Store app Is Plant Toxic? by Sequential Apps (seqapps@ gmail) I could not put the dot com without it going on a search to find the user. And as I have never corresponded with them in any way, I didn't want Wikipedia thinking I was trying to add my info. And with that, I will leave it now. Thanks.

MichaelTheGamer (talk) 20:02, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do 'stinging' plants belong here?

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Recent edits by User:Junglenut raise a valid point regarding the inclusivity of this article: should plants with urticating hairs (e.g. Urtica dioica and other members of the Urticaceae) be considered 'poisonous plants' for the purposes of this List of poisonous plants? More broadly, should plants which are toxic upon contact (as opposed to when eaten) be included?

The distinction in question here is the route by which the plant's chemical toxins get inside the bodies of people or domestic animals. Perhaps the most familiar route is ingestion, where toxins enter the body via the digestive tract when certain parts of the plant are eaten. But perhaps no less common are a wide variety of alternative routes which rely on contact between the plant and some external part of the animal's body, often the skin: the plant won't even suffer you to touch it, let alone eat it. Symptoms of toxicity naturally follow the course of the toxin, often causing contact dermatitis at the point of contact. Various mechanisms have evolved to facilitate toxicity via contact. One is to cover the leaves or stems or the entire plant with a surface residue containing toxins, which allows them to be easily rubbed off onto other creatures. Another is concentrating the toxins inside structures sharp enough to penetrate an animal's skin, in a manner vaguely similar to injection with a needle. Both are contact-dependent mechanisms, and neither distinguishes between intentional attacks and accidental contact, e.g. an animal unintentionally brushing past the plant. The plant as a whole may employ any combination of toxins and routes: they may be unsafe to eat or unsafe to touch or both, sometimes because of different chemicals in different parts of the same plant, sometimes because of the same chemical. Some chemicals are only toxic upon contact, some are only toxic if eaten, and some are toxic by both routes.

Route of administration is no doubt an important distinction to be made in certain contexts, but should it be one of the criteria for inclusion in this article? Should the list be restricted to just those plants whose poisons are ingested (the vast majority of the plants already on the list)? Or do plants that deliver toxins via physical contact count as poisonous, too?

I don't really have a strong opinion either way, but I do think this article would be better if its scope was better defined, and I must note that I find it easier to think of reasons why this article should be inclusive of plants that use contact toxins than why it shouldn't.

The primary argument for excluding plants that use contact-dependent routes appears to be that the term 'poisonous' has a clear and specific meaning in toxicology: poisons are eaten, by definition, and something can only be considered 'poisonous' if it produces its harmful effects during or after passage through the gut. Thus toxins delivered by contact with the skin are not poisons, because they are not eaten. But if plants that are toxic only by non-digestive routes aren't 'poisonous' in that strict sense, then what are they? In the animal kingdom, 'poisonous' is often distinguished from 'venomous', which also has a specific meaning. Venomous animals deliver their toxins, called 'venoms', via a forcible, 'active' mechanism, generally a sting or a bite, as opposed to the more 'passive' delivery that occurs with ingestion. People speak of venomous animals and poisonous animals. Each has its own list article on WP.

But plants are notoriously reluctant to fit into neat categories like animals. Many poisonous plants deliver their toxins in the same way that poisonous animals do, but the sense in which 'venomous' is used for animals is pretty obviously not applicable to plants. Toxins used by plants are never called 'venoms' in any botany reference I've ever encountered. Sure, the sharp needle-like structures that cover the stems and leaves of some plants may bear some basic structural similarity to the stingers and barbs of venomous animals, but this resemblance is little more than superficial. Even the WP article for venom says that venoms occur only in animals, by definition. Plant toxins are sometimes 'injected', for lack of a better word, by needle-like trichomes, but this process has little in common with the familiar usage of 'injection', and delivering toxins through trichomes does not make these plants 'venomous'. So it doesn't make sense to draw a line between 'poisonous' and 'venomous' plants in the same way that we distinguish poisonous and venomous animals.

Where then do we put the plants with contact defenses? Is it at all reasonable to group plants that are dangerous to touch with plants that are dangerous to eat?

It is perhaps notable that many if not most books and other reference materials about 'poisonous plants' do indeed include those plants which deliver their toxins by contact-based pathways. It seems more useful to the layperson, who just wants to know which plants to avoid, to group everything together under the colloquial title of 'poisonous plants', and not to split hairs about the precise meaning of 'poisonous' or the precise route of administration, particularly when details about plant toxicity are so often imprecise in the first place.

I read this article as being not simply about which plants are poisonous in the most literal sense of the word but instead about which plants have chemical defenses of any kind, whether the chemicals are injected or ingested; to me this unifying theme is more important than the underlying distinction between different routes. To me the term 'poisonous plants' encompasses both the ones you don't want to eat and the ones you don't want to touch, but I'm aware 'poisonous' has a less colloquial meaning reserved for only the ones you don't want to eat. To make a distinction by route of administration at the article level feels too extreme for plants, though it is a perfectly reasonable division to make within a single article. We could keep them together in this article but divide the two types of toxicity under different headings, perhaps a 'Poisonous plants' heading and a 'Plants which are toxic upon contact' heading or something like that. If we want to split them up that way, then perhaps we should change the article title, or at least explain in the introduction that the way we use 'poisonous plants' in the title 'List of poisonous plants' is a colloquial usage, and that a stricter definition of 'poisonous' exists which may not technically encompass every plant in the article. Or we could not split them at all, and just keep them in a single list under a single heading, and explain in the notes for each individual entry the specifics of their toxicity, including routes of administration.

Even so, dividing the article along those lines raises its own problems. As we've already pointed out, many plant species use both mechanisms at the same time - they are dangerous to eat and touch. Which header do they go under? Or do they get duplicate entries in both lists? The co-occurrence of multiple chemical defense strategies is not unusual, and so to avoid having to make redundant entries for so many species it might make more sense not to divide the list by route.

There are even more problems. What about plants like poinsettia which are erroneously perceived as poisonous? Should they have their own 'misconceptions' heading? Should they be in the article at all? Again, they are commonly listed in books and articles about poisonous plants, if only to explain that they are not, in fact, as poisonous as is popularly believed. I could see them being included in a similar way here, but ideally it would be done in such a way as to minimize the risk that readers of this article might skip the accompanying information that details their non-toxicity and assume, incorrectly, from their mere presence in this List of poisonous plants, that they are actually dangerous. I guess a false positive is better than a false negative in this case, but still it'd be nice to stymie the incidence of misunderstanding where it is predictable.

Idk, these are just my initial potentially biased thoughts. What do other Wikipedians think?—PJsg1011 (talk) 07:28, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@PJsg1011 You're absolutely right to bring this up, and I agree the answer is much bigger than a simple question of poisonous vs venomous, as you've outlined above. I'm pretty sure none of that was considered when the article was created! I think it's important to also consider the potential size of this article — even if it is restricted to a narrow definition of 'poisonous', there are many thousands of plants that could be included. But how to define it? Poisonous to just humans? Do we include pets? Livestock? Wild animals? Lets also mention the level of toxicity — numerous foods we eat contain small amounts of toxins that are only dangerous in large quantities, or only dangerous to certain people. Should we include all of them? I don't think there is a simple answer, but I would suggest there could be a number of sub-articles to deal with this. ≍ Junglenut ≍ Talk 08:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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