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Re: poisonous prairie plants

On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Alina wrote:

> Are there any native American prairie plants that are poisonous?  I'm a
> mother of a baby (soon to become a put-everything-in-my-mouth toddler) and
> would like to avoid these around my house.

Most of the prairie plants that are toxic are toxic when ingested... 
some, like water hemlock (Cicuta maculata) are quite toxic.  If you don't
recognize species well, I'd suggest you avoid the family Apiaceae
(Umbelliferae), the carrot and parsley (and water hemlock) family,
generally recognized by compound umbels (think "queen anne's lace
flowers"), hollow stems, and alternate, (usually) compound leaves with
dilated petiole bases (think of the way celery bases fit together... the
part of celery you eat is a petiole). 

Another family that probably should be avoided because of alkaloids
is the Fabaceae (Leguminosae), the pea and bean family.  If it's got
flowers that look like bean flowers (even tiny bean flowers) and 
pods that look like pea or bean pods (though often tiny), alternate,
(usually) compound leaves, it's probably not something to be chewed
on.  Here I'm primarily thinking of Oxytropis or Astragalus, but 
there are several other genera with enough alkaloids or psoralens to
cause some trouble.  

If you don't recognize plants easily, spend some time at 
http://plants.usda.gov/plants/fr_enter.cgi?earl=fr_qurymenu -- if you
ask for, say Fabaceae in Ohio (assuming that's your state), it will
give you a list of species of legumes in your state.  You can then
search those species; many have photos along with data.

Best bet, probably, is to teach kids not to sample plants without
an ok from parents, esp. since the native plants literature often doesn't
include good information on potential toxicities.  The good news,
however, is that most wild plants are pretty strongly flavored, often
bitter, and the toxic plants rarely do much more harm than a massive
case of vomiting and diarrhea.

For more information on poisonous plants, see
http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/plants.html
http://vet.purdue.edu/depts/addl/toxic/cover1.htm
http://res.agr.ca/brd/poisonpl/ 
http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/poison/index.html
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/vex/toxic/intro.htm
http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~djw/plantnam.txt


Note that veterinarians often have a better handle on toxic plants
than MDs do.  ;-)

Kay Lancaster    kay@fern.com



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