Devil’s Plants!

Devil’s Plants!

Plants may cause harm to people and animals. Plants that produce windblown pollen invoke allergic reactions in people who suffer from hay fever. A wide variety of plants are poisonous to people and/or animals. Toxalbumins are plant poisons fatal to most mammals and act as a serious deterrent to consumption. Several plants cause skin irritations when touched. In this list are appearing some of devil’s Plants in the world. Description above was probably how these plants get their names.

1. Devil's Tobacco

Lobelia tupa (Tupa, Tabaco del diablo) is a species of Lobelia native to central Chile from Valparaíso south to Los Lagos regions. It is an evergreen perennial plant growing to 4 m tall. The foliage grey-green, with elliptical leaves 10–15 cm long. The flowers are red, trumpet-shaped, produced in a sympodium pattern. It is, and thrives in dry soils.

Its latex is used as an abortifacient, and a hallucinogen, which may explain one of its common names, Tabaco del Diablo (Devil's tobacco). Ironically, this plant has been used as a counter effect herb on nicotine addiction because of alkaloid Lobeline, a nicotinic agonist. The Mapuche Indians of Southern Chile consider it a sacred plant. Tupa leaves have also been found to contain chemicals that act as a respiratory stimulant.

2. Devil’s Club

Also called Devil’s walking stick and for good reason…the plant is covered with sharp spiny thorns. It’s also known as Echinopanax horridum.  It is in the Araliaceae (or Aralia) family and very closely related to Ginsing.  

The berries are poisonous but have been used to kill lice by mashing them up and applying the paste to the hair.  This also treats dandruff and makes the hair shiny.

3. Devil’s Tongue Barrel

The Devil’s Tongue Barrel or Crows Claw Cactus is quite popular because it blooms very early with pinkish purple or yellow flowers.

They come in late autumn to early winter and need moderate amount of bright sunlight to form. It got its name from the bigger thorn that grows in the center of all the thorn rosettes.

4. Devil’s weed

The devil’s weed or datura stramonium plant. The tropane alkaloids in the plant can cause powerful visual and audio hullucinations in those who eat it and leave them in a trance-like or delirious state which can last for several days.

Weeds are plants that grow where people do not want them. The plant can also cause seizures and death.

5. Devil’s Tongue Hot Pepper

The peppers are beginning to turn some beautiful colors. This plant is called the ‘Devils Tongue’. 

Devils Tongue – extremely hot; Habanero Elongated Type; 2 to 3 inches long by 1 to 1.5 inches wide; matures from green to golden yellow; pendant pods; green leaves; 30 to 36 inches tall; Late Season; this pepper is outrageously hot

6. Devil’s Beggar-tick

Devil’s Beggar-tick is one of several species of beggar-tick, plants with seeds that “hitch a ride” on animals and clothing. Each fruit is loaded with tiny flat seeds. Each seed has two barbs (like a fishhook) which will catch on anything soft that brushes against it.

Most often seeds grab onto animal fur or a person’s clothing. Because of the plant’s height, people usually end up picking seeds, sometimes called “hitchhikers,” from their socks. Seeds are also eaten by ducks and other birds.

7. Devil’s Claw

Devil’s claw does not have an odor, but it contains substances that make it taste bitter. It is a leafy perennial with branching roots and shoots. It has secondary roots, called tubers, that grow out of the main roots. The roots and tubers are used for medicinal purposes.

Devil’s Claw – used to treat inflammation, relieve pain and swelling, as well as, treat water retention. Devil’s Claw has also been used for liver, gall bladder and kidney ailments, lymphatic system toxicity, diabetes, respiratory ailments and indigestion.

8. Devil’s ivy

Also known as the Golden Pothos and scientifically termed as Epipiremnum Aureum, the Devil’s ivy is a beautiful vine plant with leaves that are marbled and golden in color as per the name. Even if this plant is not taken care off, it thrives on and continues growing.

This plant acts as an excellent natural anti-pollutant against common pollutants like benzene, formaldehyde and carbon monoxide. However, you should take care that this plant is not ingested in any way even by your own pet dog.

9. Devil’s Tongue

Also known as konjak, konjaku, voodoo lily, snake palm, or elephant yam, is a perennial plant that has been used in China and Japan for over 2,000 years. The starchy tuber, a member of the yam family, is not unlike taro, hence its Chinese name mo yu, which means ‘devil’s taro’.

In Japan it is known as ‘devil’s tongue’ or konnyaku. Through a complicated process similar to the making of tofu, the large brown roots are peeled, boiled, mashed and then mixed with dissolved limestone to coagulate

10. Creeping Devil

Creeping Devil (Stenocereus eruca)  is one of the most distinctive cacti, a member of the relatively small genus Stenocereus. Creeping Devil lies on the ground and grows at one end while the other end slowly dies, with a succession of new roots developing on the underside of the stem

This traveling chain of growth gives rise to the name eruca, which means “caterpillar” as well as the common name Creeping Devil

11. Devil’s Backbone

Devil Backbone is also known as the Variegated Devil’s Backbone, Redbird Cactus, Slipper Flower and Jacob’s Ladder. The botanical name is Pedilanthus tithymaloides ‘Variegatus’ and it is a most unusual plant.

Although it looks like it should be growing in an aquarium, the common name of Devil’s backbone is apt for this plant, since the stems of each alternate leaf bend left or right, producing a mischievous zigzag effect.  The fleshy stems and leaves of the Pedilanthus contain an acrid milky sap which can cause skin irritation and is especially harmful to eyes and open cuts. It is difficult to wash off and will cause an upset stomach, if ingested. Article Source: wikipedia & fizzyenergy 

 

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Killer Plants

Some Deadly Poisonous Plants in the Earth

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The scientific study of plants, known as botany, has identified about 350,000 extant species of plants, defined as seed plants, bryophytes, ferns and fern allies. As of 2004, some 287,655 species had been identified, of which 258,650 are flowering and 18,000 bryophytes (see table below). Green plants, sometimes called Viridiplantae, obtain most of their energy from sunlight via a process called photosynthesis.

Moonseed

Images Source:  Missouri plants and paradisegardentx

A otherworldly name and a plant with often fatal effects. The seeds of this Eastern North American drupe (stone fruit) are extremely toxic to humans, although birds can eat them. Moonseeds first cause paralysis but are fatal in larger doses and/or if treatment is not sought immediately.

Castor Bean

Images via UCC, My Sunshine Garden and remarc

Castor oil – for anyone unlucky enough to have been force spoon-fed this healthy yet disgusting fluid as a child, you may be surprised to learn that an ingredient in the castor bean just happens to be the deadliest plant poison on earth. Literally. Just one tiny castor bean is enough to kill an adult within a few minutes. Castor oil is made safe (but not palatable) with the removable of the lethal compound known as ricin. Amazingly, castor bean plants are grown for decorative purpose all over the place, particularly in California.

Rosary Pea

Image source stellasmagazine

As if a deadly legume weren’t bad enough, the pulses aren’t so benign, either. The rosary pea may sound sweet and downright pious, but it’s actually one of the most dangerous plants on earth. Its seeds contain a particular lectin known as abrin; if chewed and swallowed, death will follow shortly. The seeds are easily identified with their distinctive bright red jacket and single black dot (almost like a reverse Black Widow spider). Abrin, which does its damage by inactivating ribosomes, is one of the most fatal toxins on earth. After the  vomiting, fever, nausea, drooling and G.I. dysfunction but before the bizarre hyperexcitability, edema and fatally convulsive seizures, renal tubular degeneration, bladder and retinal hemorrhage and widespread internal lesions typically develop.

Snakeroot

Images via Stellasmagazine

Snakeroot is most dangerous for livestock such as cattle and sheep. When cows consume the attractive fluffy white blooms and stems of the snakeroot, their milk and bones become saturated with the toxin tremetol and humans who consume these contaminated animal products will develop milk sickness (tremetol poisoning). In fact, milk sickness is what killed Abraham Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks.

Bushman’s poison

Images via plantzafrica

The aptly-named Bushman’s poison has famously been used by the Khoisan of South Africa to poison the tips of their arrows. Though the plant produces pleasantly scented flowers and a tasty plum-like berry, the milky sap can be fatal. The leaves, however, have medicinal properties. Bushman’s poison is also known as the wintersweet.

English Yew

Images via greenlover, c-r-alpacas, bomengids, and Britannica

The English Yew, or taxus baccata (“taxus” meaning toxin), is one of the deadliest trees on the planet. The evergreen has a majestic and lush appearance and is fairly common in forests of Europe. The yew is considered by scientists to be an odd and primitive conifer along with the monkey puzzle tree of Chile and Gingko biloba tree of Asia. The yew has a rather sad history. All parts – save for the flesh of the berries – are extremely poisonous. Because the toxin causes convulsions and paralysis, it was once used as an abortifacient.

Apothecaries would dry and powder the leaves and stems and give desperate women minute amounts in the days before birth control was available. Unfortunately, death would often result. The yew has been quite popular throughout history for a number of medicinal purposes at extremely dilute levels, but it is deemed too dangerous in modern medical practice to be of use. The yew’s primary toxin is taxine, a cardiac depressant. The yew acts rapidly and there is no antidote.

Narcissus

Images via the Guardian and the flower expert

Narcissists are toxic enough when they come in human form, but the plant for which they are named, also called the daffodil, is highly poisonous. Poet’s narcissus is more toxic than daffodil, but in both cases it is the bulbs, not the flower or stems, that cause illness. One famous fatal case in Toulouse in the early 1900s occurred when the bulbs were mistaken for onions and consumed. According to Botanical.com, “Socrates called this plant the ‘Chaplet of the infernal Gods,’ because of its narcotic effects. An extract of the bulbs, when applied to open wounds, has produced staggering, numbness of the whole nervous system and paralysis of the heart.” Yet, there are medicinal properties, and some cultures even believe they can cure baldness and serve as a potent aphrodisiac. (Do not try at home.) 

Strychnine tree

Images via motherherbs, BRAIN and wikipedia

Queen Cleopatra famously forced servants to commit suicide by means of a strychnine tree’s fruit seeds, which contain lethal levels of strychnine and brucine, in order to determine if it would be the best means for her own suicide. Upon seeing their agony (which included painful vomiting, facial contortions and convulsions) she opted for the apparently less horrific choice of the asp. (The asp was actually an ancient term for any number of poisonous snakes, but experts think it was probably the cobra that Cleopatra chose to end her life.) 

Daphne

Images via Bonnie Day and Island Net

This plant, also called the spurge laurel, is a favorite ornamental shrub in Europe. This drupe-producing evergreen with waxy, attractive foliage and gorgeously fragrant blooms is also highly toxic. Consumption of the leaves or red or yellow fruits will first cause nausea and violent vomiting, followed by internal bleeding, coma and death. The daphne plant is rich in the toxin mezerein.

Choke cherry

Images via Why Oh Why and BC

Chokecherry, or wild cherry, is a North American plant that is known for its large sprays of tiny white flowers. The cherries are small and not eaten. The plant’s woody stalks and leaves are full of hydrocyanic acid, which is fatal if consumed. The poison affects the respiratory system, and rapid breathing, choking and asphyxiation result. 

Jimsonweed

Image Source: ToyZone

Location: Jimson weed is usually found in warm climates. While it is not native to Britain, it can now be found growing in the gardens of southern England.

Jimsonweed was originally called Jamestown weed because the soldiers sent to quell "Bacon’s Rebellion" in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1666 ate the berries when food ran out and mass poisoning resulted. Another man was poisoned after he drank an herbal tea brewed from the leaves of this plant.

The funnel-shaped flowers of the jimsonweed plant are white or purple. The entire plant has an unpleasant odor, and the fruit, which appears in autumn, is prickly, ovoid or globular, and contains numerous wrinkled black seeds.

Effects and Symptoms: People who ingest parts of the jimsonweed plant will experience headache, vertigo, extreme thirst, dry burning sensation of skin, dilated pupils, blurred vision, loss of sight, involuntary motion, mania, delirium, drowsiness, weak pulse, convulsions, and coma. These symptoms, if left not treated properly can result in the death of the patient.

Fox Glove

Image Source: ToyZone

Location: Although it is sometimes cultivated in gardens, foxglove is frequently found wild in north central and north-eastern United States, as well as along the Pacific Coast, and in Hawaii.

All parts of the fox glove plant are toxic. Digitalis purpurea is a heteroside. The leaves contain digitalin, digitoxin, and digitonin. Severe poisoning comes about as a result of eating the leaves “”either dried or fresh “” which do not lose their toxicity through cooking.

Effects and Symptoms: Headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, blurred vision, delirium, slow or irregular pulse, distortion of colors, and death. Death is usually caused by ventricular fibrillation, excessively increasing the force of the heart’s contractions which in turn irritates the heart and stimulates the central nervous system.  Sources: whmentors.org, Live Science, How Stuff Works, Wikipedia  

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CUTE KILLER!

World Most Poisonous Flowers

Flowers are very pretty sight to behold with marvelous colorful and enchanting fragrance. Many flowers have bewitching beauty but behind those magnificence and innocence charm lays a secret that need to be retold. Anyone who adores flower could just touch or even snap them out without knowing they have poisons.

Aconitum

Also known as aconite, Monkhood, Wolsbane, Leopard’s bane, Women’s bane, Devil’s helmet or Blue rocket contains Nepalese poison with high content of alkaloid. The Minaro , Chinese as well as Japanese Ainu tribes used poison arrow both for hunting and for warfare. The purified aconite caused paralyses of he numbs, nerves resulted in an aesthetic effect in the skin. The plants taken internally may result in slow pulse, heart palpitations, blood pressure falls as the heart may beat much faster than normally with extreme irregularity.

Milkweeds

Also known as Asclepiads produces contain toxic such as alkaloids, latex, and cardenolides which is toxic to animals. South America and Africa natives used arrows poison with glycosides to fight and hunt more effectively. The milky sap when ingested by animals may cause death, mild dermatitis. Milkweed sap is also externally as a natural remedy for poison ivy.

Atropa belladonna or deadly nightshade

Ingestion of berries both by adult and children may causes delirium and hallucinations. Ingestion of 10 to 20 berries and a single leaf of the plant can be fatal. Symptoms of poisoning includes dilated pupils, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, slow or fast pulse, loss of balance, staggering, headache, rash, flushing, dry mouth, slurred speech, urinary retention, constipation, confusion, as well as convulsions.

Bloodroot

 Also known as Sanguinaria Canadensis, Bloodwort, Red puccoon root, Pauson and Tetterwort in America and Greater Celandine in Britain. The plant contains toxic substances such as morphine like benzylisoquinoline alkaloids and the toxin sanguinary which destroy cells resulting in scabs in skin exposed to the plant substances.

Scotch Broom/Cytisus scoparius

Commonly known as English Broom in Britain, Ireland is a Perennial, Leguminous shrub native to western and central Europe. The toxic substance of Cytisus scoparius contains alkaloids and that depress the heart and nervous system.

Datura

It is also known as Witches’ weeds. Most parts of the plants contain toxic hallucinogens which could causes delirium and death.

Delphinium or Larkspur

All parts of the plant contain alkaloid delphinine toxins causes vomiting and death both in humans and animals. It has cardiotoxic and neuromuscular blocking effects. It is eaten by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Dot Moth and Small Angle Shades.

Duranta erecta

Considered as ornamental invasive species of plants from Australia, China, South Africa and on several Pacific Islands. It is also known as Golden Dewdrop, Pigeon Berry, Skyflower and Aussie Gold. The leaves, barks and berries could cause death to children including dogs and cats. However, songbirds eat the fruit without ill effects.

Digitalis

Also known as Foxgloves, Dead Man’s Bells, and Witches’ Gloves contain deadly toxic of cardiac and steroidal glycosides. The entire plant including the roots, leaves and seed are toxic particularly the upper stem when nibble being cause death both in humans and animals. Early symptoms of ingestion includes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, convulsions, wild hallucinations, delirium and severe headache. In severe cases it may causes bradycardia and tachycardia, tremors, various cerebral disturbances, visual disturbances.

Grevillea

It is also known as Spider Flower, Silky-oak and Toothbrush. Drinking nectar direct from the flower is best avoided as some commonly cultivated Grevillea species produce flowers containing toxic cyanide.

Henbane

Also known as Stinking nightshade or Black henbane has psychoactive properties causing visual hallucinations, dilated pupils, restlessness, flushed skin, vomiting, slow and fast pulse, hyperpyrexia and ataxia. Henbane could be toxic and fatal both to humans and animals in low doses.

Lily of the valley or Convallaria majalis

It is also known as The lily of the valley and Mary’s. All parts including the berries are highly poisonous containing 38 different cardiac glycosides.

Brugmansia

Also known as Angel’s Trumpet contain dangerous levels of poison and may be fatal if ingested both by humans, animals, including livestock and pets. Contact with the eyes can cause pupil dilatation known as mydriasis resulting in unequal pupil size.

Euphorbia lathyris

It is also known as Caper Spurge, Paper Spurge, Gopher Spurge, Gopher Plant or Mole Plan. All parts of the plant including the seeds and roots are poisonous. The latex from plants causes skin irritation while Livestock including goats are immune to the toxin. The toxin can be passed through the goat’s milk.

Nerium oleander

Also known as Oleander contains deadly toxic compounds of oleandrin and neriine toxins found in the sap. Ingestion of the plants substances in children and adults including animals such as a handful or 10-20 leaves consumed in adult cause an adverse reaction and a single leaf could be lethal to an infant or child. Symptoms include severe digestive upset, heart trouble, contact dermatitis and in severe cases death.

Opium

Also known as Poppy tears, Lachryma papaveris contains toxic substances known as morphine and opiate alkaloid. The latex from plants caused respiratory difficulties, coma, cardiac or respiratory collapse with a normal lethal dose of 120 to 250 mg found in approximately two grams of opium. Regular use can lead to drug tolerance or physical dependence.

Conium

Also known as Water Hemlock or Poison Hemlock could cause respiratory collapse and death by blocking the neuromuscular junction resulting in muscular paralysis of the respiratory muscles due to lack of oxygen to the heart .Ingestion of more than 100 mg of 6 to 8 fresh leaves or a smaller dose of the seeds or root may be fatal. The philosopher Socrates after being condemned to death for impiety in 399 BC was given a potent infusion of the hemlock plant.

Pokeweeds

Also known as Poke, Pokebush, Pokeberry, Pokeroot, Polk salad, Polk salat, Polk sallet, Inkberry contains poisonous substances such as phytolaccatoxin and phytolaccigenin may caused itching, vomiting, dyspnea, perspiration, spasms, severe purging, prostration, tremors, watery diarrhea and convulsions. In severe cases causes weakness, excessive yawning, slowed breathing, fast heartbeat, dizziness, seizures, coma and death.

Rhododendron

It’s contains toxic substances such as grayanotoxin in their pollen and the nectar from honey made by bees feeding on rhododendron and azalea flowers cause illnesses to humans as well as animals dying within few hours after ingestion. The symptoms cause hallucinogenic and laxative effect.

Yellow Jasmine or Gelsemium sempervirens

All parts of this plant contain toxic strychnine related to alkaloids gelsemine and gelseminine. Substances found in the sap may cause skin irritation in sensitive individuals. Children mistaking this flower for honeysuckle have been poisoned by sucking the nectar from the flower. The nectar is also toxic to honeybees.

Wikimedia

You may be surprised to find out the incredibly lethal flower often hanging around the Neighborhood Park, garden, village or gracing your tabletop. It’s real time to know about them.

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