Poisonous plant

Good job you didn’t decide to include some chopped leaves in a beef wellington …. 😮

I first came across Datura when visiting my parents several years ago. Dad had it growing in a pot in the porch. I took an instant dislike to it especially its cloying sickly smell and found it sinister. My instincts were right. I didn’t realised it had escaped into the wild.

FGT2 - I'd have been the UK equivalent of Erin Patterson!

Datura is beautiful,but deadly.
It can produce hallucinations and cause death .
In some cultures it has a sacred use .
Used correctly it can be used as a hair restorative , but this is also considered highly dangerous and controversial .
I wonder if it's yet another plant ,
which is sold without any warnings like Diffenbachia . .

https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202509/medium-a828lw-1000026096.jpg%3C/span%3E https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202509/medium-fni0sd-1000026094.jpg%3C/span%3E

So many plants are poisonous if ingested.
We can't remove them all.
I go foraging once a month with a Botanist leader. One of the most alarming plants he showed us how to identify was Hemlock.
It was growing vigorously very near a favourite beach.
He wasn't worried. He said it smells horrible so you wouldn't eat it. Animals avoid it. Although it looks like harmless cow parsley type plants it has distinctive purple blotches on its stem.

Datura used to grow in the wild when we lived abroad in Asia. I think it’s part of the Nightshade family.

I think rhubarb leaves are poisonous but our local wildlife eats them. We have an oleander bush/tree in the front garden. Very,very pretty blossoms but I always warn children not to touch it.

If we got rid of all the poisonous plants in our gardens-we wouldn't be left with much .
My mother used to go into hyperdrive about my laburnum trees . My girls used to play at being witches and make potions
But Mum had some poisonous plants in her garden as well .
She had a huge castor oil plant -which produces deadly ricin .
Rhubarb has oxalic acid .
Even apple seeds contain cyanide but you'd have to eat a lot of them .
Daffodil bulbs are dangerous too .
I think that the answer is to tell people and to be careful .

Correction - castor bean .
Another correction - Dieffenbachia and I really wouldn't have it in the house -too close for comfort .

Wow! I love Datura. Had a huge one growing like a vine in Spain & later DH grew 2 beauties over here. I had no idea they were poisonous.

Grammaretto

So many plants are poisonous if ingested.
We can't remove them all.
I go foraging once a month with a Botanist leader. One of the most alarming plants he showed us how to identify was Hemlock.
It was growing vigorously very near a favourite beach.
He wasn't worried. He said it smells horrible so you wouldn't eat it. Animals avoid it. Although it looks like harmless cow parsley type plants it has distinctive purple blotches on its stem.

I remember my dad showing us how to make whistles with cow parsley stems when we were very young - hemlock does look a lot like cow parsley, but as we had no streams or wet ditches, we didn't have any growing, & although I made lots of whistles, they never harmed me.
There is a lot of hemlock where I live now.