Come on, Carlota.

This is an over-hyped subject with very little substance. The dangers of a simple car ride to the grocery store or products stored under the kitchen sink are enormous compared to this topic. Let's not add fuel to essentially a non-issue.

IronBelly

Ironbelly,
I agree that the odds of being in a car accident on the way to the grocery store are greater then they are of plant poisoning. But according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers in 2000, 197,281 calls were made regarding cleaning substances, out of that number 117,063(59% of total) of the calls were regarding children age 6 and under. Also in 2000, the AAPCC recorded 115,779 calls about plants and mushrooms 81,852 (71% of the total) of those calls were made regarding children age 6 and under.
So, before making the assumption that this subject has little substance, and is a non-issue, perhaps you should consider the parents who have dealt with this issue and the parents that take steps to prevent this from ever happening to them.

Speaking of assumptions ... lets not incorrectly assume that that every call for information equates to an actual poisoning.

Close observation and supervision of children too young to understand and teaching children to keep unknown objects (of any nature) out of their mouths is a responsibility borne by all parents. To narrow the focus is capricious.

Lifting a few statistics, limited in scope and out of context to create unnecessary hysteria is journalism at its worst.

IronBelly

Here are the results of a Google.com advanced search for the word "children" plus the phrase "poisonous plants."

If you check the sites listed, you will probably find some information you can use.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Google advanced search - children

Hi Petaloid,

Thank you for taking the time to research on google. I have been doing plenty of research on this topic and appreciate all the help I can get. Your search provided me with lots of reading to do.

To everyone reading this thread,

When my little girl was about 18 months old she picked out of our lawn a very small mushroom and decided to have a taste. We were in the yard with her and she was playing with her sister in the sprinklers while my husband and I did some weeding. She very proudly walked up to us with half a mushroom and held it out. There was a huge oak tree in our neighbors back yard and there are poisonous mushrooms that grow near oak trees.

After calling the poison control center in our area we were instructed to take her and any mushrooms we could find to the local ER. She was then feed a charcoal "cocktail" that had to be feed to her through a tube.

We had thought that we had removed all poisonous plants from our yard. There were 12 Oleanders, delphiniums, and Angels Trumpets that we had taken out the weekend we moved in to the house. The mushrooms must have grown in response to the heavy rains that we were having that year, and we failed to notice them growing in our big lawn.

Thankfully, she is fine and now is a very healthy almost 5-year-old who can identify more poisonous plants then some adults I know.

But, I have noticed that they grow Oleander at my other daughters elementary school and there is milkweed growing at another school I know. In horror, I have seen my friends young children pick lantana berries and have had to stop them then explain to their parents.

After talking to my non-gardener friends, I have learned that many of them couldn't even identify an Oleander bush. I say couldn't, because I have time and again taught them to identify the potentially dangerous plants.

If you have a story to share, I would be interested in hearing it.

Thank you for your time,
Carlota

I grew up in a remote rural swampy area among subsistence farmers. There were many plants around which were thought to be toxic or poisonous. Milkweed, Jepson(sp?) weed, many things with thorns, black walnut hulls, real tobacco, "Indian tobacco", [wink, wink], "toad stools" etc.

We were unsupervised beyond your wildest imagination. I never knew of anyone being harmed by eating something that was not supposed to be eaten. Many of us got sick more than once from too many unripened cherries, plums, watermelon etc. Most of us got sick at least once from chewing tobacco.

Biggest problem plant was poison ivy when growing up unsupervised in the relative wild.

I travel quite a lot and do a lot of camping. In all the places that grow Oleander as a decorative plant only one campground at Lake Mead had signs warning people of its toxicity. I seem to remember that the toxicity of Poinsettias is based on one case from Hawaii where the child actually ate numerous leaves from an assortment of plants including Oleander. Now they say that Poinsettias are not poisonous but literature and posters put out by Poison Control Agencies still include it.

I remember the local case of two little adopted boys who died from eating oleander leaves -- this was a couple of years ago. The link I found is to the Los Angeles Times newspaper archives, where you have to pay $2.50 to get the complete article -- maybe you can find a free source.

The fact that this is a "rare case" would be no comfort to the boys' parents. As I recall, the bushes were in the yard where the boys played and the parents didn't know they were poisonous. No matter how well adults train and supervise youngsters, their actions cannot be controlled 100%. A responsible adult will eliminate as many potential hazards from the child's environment as possible, and knowledge of poisonous plants is a vital part of this.

My understanding is that all parts of the oleander are poisonous; leaves, berries, etc. It is used extensively for landscaping here in SoCal, because it is an attractive flowering plant that thrives on neglect. We would never have it near our home because we have a dog who likes to chew.

Here is a link that might be useful: Oleander poisoning case in Los Angeles

I swear to "Big Daddy upstairs" that I responded to this already, but oh well...
A neighbors' child was quite ill before admitting to eating Oleander leaves. (All parts are poinoness to my "resources")
I am Swiss and numerous people (adults included) have been ill/died from Mushrooms there. (Proper identification is the KEY)
I think the incidences are more rare and less deadly than imagined, yet to those who have lost/ or almost lost someone, this is VERY BIG and VERY REAL!!! (The samesaid neighbor went on a crusade and all but illiminated Oleanders from that area!)
Thank God I don't have anything "better"!!! AMS

There was a boy from my school who got sick after he ate some mistletoe berries on a dare. He was in sixth grade at the time, and fully recovered.