Hemlock and castor bean

I had the impression that castor bean (or castor-oil plant as we know it here) is naturalised in just about all parts of the world with frost free (or almost) climate with hot summers. And hemlock likewise but in cooler, moister climates.
 
In my opinion the likelihood of either castor bean or hemlock poisoning the population at large is greatly overrated. Both have very acrid-tasting foliage which would make children spit with disgust as soon as they tasted them, and I doubt that the poisonous principle is present in very high concentration in the foliage. I seem to recall from the poison plants literature that livestock sometimes graze hemlock with no ill effects. And most cases of accidental poisoning from castor bean have arisen from chewing the seeds, which do contain a deadly poison in high concentration.
 
I am not trying to say that these plants are not deadly poisons when ingested in certain ways, just that there is no need for panic simply because they are present in your neighbourhood. Another equally poisonous plant is oleander, which is a common garden shrub in Australia as well as southern California, but instances of poisoning are few and far between. Oleander also has extremely bitter foliage. Most of the historical accounts of fatal oleander poisoning implicate heat extraction from the stems, either from using the twigs to stir hot soups or beverages or as skewers to barbecue meat; smoke inhalation from burning branches has also been implicated, though I don't know if there have been fatalities from this.
 
Public awareness rather than eradication is the more practical means of prevention of poisoning. That said, I have no love of either hemlock or castor bean, as both are unsightly and invasive weeds.
 
Tony Rodd
 
Sydney, Australia
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