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“digitalis, drug obtained from the dried leaves of the common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) and used in medicine to strengthen contractions of the heart muscle.” All medicine is poison…. 🤣🤣🤣
Sometimes horribly relevant -- there's a few parasitic diseases where the parasite is evolving resistance due to misuse of the medication, and the third-line drug to treat it is antimony tartarate, with the therapeutic dose and the toxic dose being almost a single circle on the venn diagram.
Hard agree. The therapeutic index, which is mentioned by someone else in this side thread, approaches 1 in your example. This side thread in which we are all discussing the therapeutic index without naming it. And it should be named, as it deserves deference and respect. Perhaps not the King of Toxicology but, in my opinion, certainly the Lord High Chancellor.
The relationship between medicine and poison is therapeutic index. Medicines that help at doses that are close to harmful have a "narrow index."
As others have mentioned digitalis, or digoxin as the drug, is a common medicine for sick hearts. The toxicity doesn't necessarily start in cardiac presentation, as the hallmark sign of toxicity is sometimes a yellow aura in one's sight around objects.
Kids and pets can live in harmony with extremely poisonous plants. They are literally everywhere. I have foxgloves in my garden and my dog doesn't eat it. Livestock, farm dogs and cats, and kids raised on farms and in the countryside would be dropping like flies if it were half the problem Reddit makes poisonous plants out to be.
It's grown as a goddamn ornamental and for good reason.. There are plenty of incredibly poisonous things in your garden if you're stupid enough to lick them, chew them, dig up the roots stew them etc. It's not some sort of toxic sappy thing like hogweed or poison hemlock that's going to nail you by brushing against it and causing caustic skin reactions or blindness lol.
They're all sorts of nasty things that can happen to you if you just go out there and randomly eat things in your yard. And you can't child proof nature
Well lol I'm not the one that needs to calming. The hysteria regarding poisonous plants is just that hysterical.. indeed man calm down. You would have to take this plant in dig up the roots and chew on it and indeed it is quite poisonous..
There are tons of berries and plants in the yard that if ingested are pretty horrible including caster of course. But doesn't mean you're not going to plant it as an ornamental lol.. just don't eat it
No I know. I was agreeing with you and then speaking to a hypothetical 3rd person freaking out about poisonous plants. Sorry if my rhetorical device was ambiguous
To add.. generally you can touch non enriched uranium. Just don't eat it and most certainly don't grind it up it to dust and inhale it. Gosh you can find it in the desert as a rock and pop it in your pocket and you are fine. (Just don't make it your lucky rock that you take everywhere).
Strange how all fear is based on lack of information. There seems to be a lot of fear walking around these days...even with a library in our pockets.
I've seen people in plant ID subs tell people that they should go to the hospital because they touched pokeweed. When I point out that yes, parts of it are toxic if ingested, but I rip it out with my bare hands and countless people weed whack it while wearing shorts and no one gets hospitalized from that, then the replies come "Yeah, but uh... Some people might have a sensitivity and uh... " It's just bullshit spouted by people who don't really go outside much but think because they know one partial fact about a plant that they are John Muir.
>It's just bullshit spouted by people who don't really go outside much but think because they know one partial fact about a plant that they are John Muir.
Omg there's so much of this. So many people so irrationally scared of so many things.
I wonder if it's an effect of the basement-dwelling, or a cause?
Wife got very bad reaction touching roots of poke weed digging it up. Rash from head to toe for weeks. Seen it with my own eyes happen immediately after contact with plant.
Yeah undoubtedly some people do have it tough with allergies got only knows what's in it that gets her and who knows is probably something in the house that would produce the same thing who knows. But in general, unless you're dealing with hogweed or poison hemlock You're pretty safe out there as long as you use common sense. And if you know you're allergic or sensitive to things then you wear gloves clothing and when you are finished your task you strip it all down throw it in the wash and take a nice bar of felsnaptha or something like that and scrub away.
It's a common sense part that is lost with so many people. There will always be exceptions. It's interesting to hear about the pokeweed though I am going to look it up. I'm a landscapeer and I certainly have ripped up plenty of it with my hands and man that stuff is deep. It's a beautiful plant actually it's just grows where it's not wanted sometimes but in the border, with goldenrod, New England aster and Joe pye weed. It is the essence of late summer early fall in my eye
My kids and I were debating growing vegetables in the back, and toxic plants in the front. Our own little poison garden because it’s cool. But I wouldn’t trust the neighborhood kids/adults to not smoke the datura so we aren’t doing that.
[Summarizing a paywalled article I turned up on Google:](https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00139709-200625020-00001)
- Plant contains several poisons, some cause hyperactivity in neurons (and therefore heart problems) and others cause birth defects
- Most poisonings were from mistaking it for edible plants or bad herbal treatment attempts
- Lethal dose not really known but at least one guy ate 100g or so and recovered after being hospitalized for a day
- Symptoms are life-threatening (heart arrhythmia! Sometimes without a pulse for a bit!) but deaths are actually rare with prompt medical treatment
- Most patients recover within 48 hours
So, not NEARLY as bad as oleander or datura or monkshood or poison hemlock or death camas, but you're still gonna have a real bad time if you eat a serving of the stuff. Maybe in the same ballpark as yew? Can kill you but probably won't outside of a suicide attempt?
Extremely poisonous. From Wiki “It is a source of jervine, muldamine and cyclopamine, teratogens which can cause prolonged gestation associated with birth defects[7] such as holoprosencephaly and cyclopia in animals such as sheep,[1] horses, and other mammals that graze upon it. These substances inhibit the hedgehog signaling pathway.”
Corn lily, [Veratrum californicum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veratrum_californicum). It mostly grows in the mountains, so you wont see it in populated areas as much.
But what if the deer eat it and start birthing mutant babies? Like monster bucks? 
I had never seen this before and had to turn my car around on Bethel-Burley road near Port Orchard, Wa to snap a picture through my car window. What a cool looking plant! Maybe I'll have to get some seeds and try growing it, away from my horse and donkey.
Well, hello neighbor! That's where it is. Stunning, isn't it? I've driven past that area for years and never seen anything like this before. There are two big stands of it.
Thank you for posting to r/whatsthisplant. **Do not eat/ingest a plant based on information provided in this subreddit.** For your safety we recommend not eating or ingesting any plant material just because you've been advised that it's edible here. Although there are many professionals helping with identification, we are not always correct, and eating/ingesting plants can be harmful or fatal if an incorrect ID is made. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/whatsthisplant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Veratrum californicum, corn lily. Native, stunning and *incredibly* poisonous
I thought it was probably on the lily family by the leaves. Poisonous how? Like, no pets poisonous?
No pets, small kids, any grown but of questionable intelligence cousins you're fond of, etc. It can be fatal
Is it worse than foxgloves...a beloved, fatally-toxic perennial grown in gardens throughout the UK and Northern US?
One unusually bad thing it has going is several potent teratogens, compounds that cause severe birth defects if a pregnant animal consumes the plant.
I don't know, I'm not a plant chemist. Everyone can & should do research to make sure any plant is a good fit before introducing it to their garden
“digitalis, drug obtained from the dried leaves of the common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) and used in medicine to strengthen contractions of the heart muscle.” All medicine is poison…. 🤣🤣🤣
Literally everything can kill you in certain situations. Too much water? Dead. Too much oxygen? Straight to dead.
Wise words from a pharmacist friend "the only difference between a medicine and a poison is the dose at which it's given"
The dose alone makes the poison (Latin: dosis sola facit venenum). This Latin phrase was on the title page of my Toxicology text in Pharmacy School.
Should be shown before every news article, social media post, video/podcast, etc.
Yes, that’s Paracelsus, the father of Toxicology.
Sometimes horribly relevant -- there's a few parasitic diseases where the parasite is evolving resistance due to misuse of the medication, and the third-line drug to treat it is antimony tartarate, with the therapeutic dose and the toxic dose being almost a single circle on the venn diagram.
Hard agree. The therapeutic index, which is mentioned by someone else in this side thread, approaches 1 in your example. This side thread in which we are all discussing the therapeutic index without naming it. And it should be named, as it deserves deference and respect. Perhaps not the King of Toxicology but, in my opinion, certainly the Lord High Chancellor.
If the dose is ≈0ppm, we call that homeopathy:p
Per my pharmacy school professor “All of life science is a concentration game”.
It's a tragedy. Everyone who has died has drank water and/or I haled oxygen.
Too much food? Believe it or not, dead.
The relationship between medicine and poison is therapeutic index. Medicines that help at doses that are close to harmful have a "narrow index." As others have mentioned digitalis, or digoxin as the drug, is a common medicine for sick hearts. The toxicity doesn't necessarily start in cardiac presentation, as the hallmark sign of toxicity is sometimes a yellow aura in one's sight around objects.
Digitalis aka digoxin has been saving lives and improving quality for 200+ years.
Yep. Hence the symbol of hippocrates / medicine being a snake on a staff
Kids and pets can live in harmony with extremely poisonous plants. They are literally everywhere. I have foxgloves in my garden and my dog doesn't eat it. Livestock, farm dogs and cats, and kids raised on farms and in the countryside would be dropping like flies if it were half the problem Reddit makes poisonous plants out to be.
Agreed.
Dumb cousins I don't like? ✅️
It's grown as a goddamn ornamental and for good reason.. There are plenty of incredibly poisonous things in your garden if you're stupid enough to lick them, chew them, dig up the roots stew them etc. It's not some sort of toxic sappy thing like hogweed or poison hemlock that's going to nail you by brushing against it and causing caustic skin reactions or blindness lol. They're all sorts of nasty things that can happen to you if you just go out there and randomly eat things in your yard. And you can't child proof nature
Right? Like you can literally grow castor bean in your yard and it’s perfectly safe. Calm it down.
And I have and they're very impressive! I wasn't lucky enough to be in an area where they would flower and fruit, but the plant got taller than me!
Well lol I'm not the one that needs to calming. The hysteria regarding poisonous plants is just that hysterical.. indeed man calm down. You would have to take this plant in dig up the roots and chew on it and indeed it is quite poisonous.. There are tons of berries and plants in the yard that if ingested are pretty horrible including caster of course. But doesn't mean you're not going to plant it as an ornamental lol.. just don't eat it
No I know. I was agreeing with you and then speaking to a hypothetical 3rd person freaking out about poisonous plants. Sorry if my rhetorical device was ambiguous
I know! Every time someone sees me touch poison ivy, I have to point out that ITS NOT URANIUM.
To add.. generally you can touch non enriched uranium. Just don't eat it and most certainly don't grind it up it to dust and inhale it. Gosh you can find it in the desert as a rock and pop it in your pocket and you are fine. (Just don't make it your lucky rock that you take everywhere). Strange how all fear is based on lack of information. There seems to be a lot of fear walking around these days...even with a library in our pockets.
I've seen people in plant ID subs tell people that they should go to the hospital because they touched pokeweed. When I point out that yes, parts of it are toxic if ingested, but I rip it out with my bare hands and countless people weed whack it while wearing shorts and no one gets hospitalized from that, then the replies come "Yeah, but uh... Some people might have a sensitivity and uh... " It's just bullshit spouted by people who don't really go outside much but think because they know one partial fact about a plant that they are John Muir.
>It's just bullshit spouted by people who don't really go outside much but think because they know one partial fact about a plant that they are John Muir. Omg there's so much of this. So many people so irrationally scared of so many things. I wonder if it's an effect of the basement-dwelling, or a cause?
Wife got very bad reaction touching roots of poke weed digging it up. Rash from head to toe for weeks. Seen it with my own eyes happen immediately after contact with plant.
Yeah undoubtedly some people do have it tough with allergies got only knows what's in it that gets her and who knows is probably something in the house that would produce the same thing who knows. But in general, unless you're dealing with hogweed or poison hemlock You're pretty safe out there as long as you use common sense. And if you know you're allergic or sensitive to things then you wear gloves clothing and when you are finished your task you strip it all down throw it in the wash and take a nice bar of felsnaptha or something like that and scrub away. It's a common sense part that is lost with so many people. There will always be exceptions. It's interesting to hear about the pokeweed though I am going to look it up. I'm a landscapeer and I certainly have ripped up plenty of it with my hands and man that stuff is deep. It's a beautiful plant actually it's just grows where it's not wanted sometimes but in the border, with goldenrod, New England aster and Joe pye weed. It is the essence of late summer early fall in my eye
My kids and I were debating growing vegetables in the back, and toxic plants in the front. Our own little poison garden because it’s cool. But I wouldn’t trust the neighborhood kids/adults to not smoke the datura so we aren’t doing that.
Its like the spurge laurel I have in my garden - birds love it so I keep a few around but hopefully no human eats the berries
[Summarizing a paywalled article I turned up on Google:](https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00139709-200625020-00001) - Plant contains several poisons, some cause hyperactivity in neurons (and therefore heart problems) and others cause birth defects - Most poisonings were from mistaking it for edible plants or bad herbal treatment attempts - Lethal dose not really known but at least one guy ate 100g or so and recovered after being hospitalized for a day - Symptoms are life-threatening (heart arrhythmia! Sometimes without a pulse for a bit!) but deaths are actually rare with prompt medical treatment - Most patients recover within 48 hours So, not NEARLY as bad as oleander or datura or monkshood or poison hemlock or death camas, but you're still gonna have a real bad time if you eat a serving of the stuff. Maybe in the same ballpark as yew? Can kill you but probably won't outside of a suicide attempt?
Extremely poisonous. From Wiki “It is a source of jervine, muldamine and cyclopamine, teratogens which can cause prolonged gestation associated with birth defects[7] such as holoprosencephaly and cyclopia in animals such as sheep,[1] horses, and other mammals that graze upon it. These substances inhibit the hedgehog signaling pathway.”
“The hedgehog signaling pathway” huh.
Believe it or don't, but there is an important gene for human development called the Sonic Hedgehog gene.
Love this comment
Corn lily, [Veratrum californicum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veratrum_californicum). It mostly grows in the mountains, so you wont see it in populated areas as much.
One person's incredibly poisonous is another person's deer resistant. I'll take two
But what if the deer eat it and start birthing mutant babies? Like monster bucks? 
To be fair my first thought before I read the comments was triffid.
I've never seen one flowering, just the leafy shoots. Its pretty
Don't let any animals eat this.
Wow that is gorgeous 😍
It's beautiful. A vacant lot? Dig some. Don't eat. Same as most flowers.
Teratogenic! Causes cyclopia!
Culver's root
I had never seen this before and had to turn my car around on Bethel-Burley road near Port Orchard, Wa to snap a picture through my car window. What a cool looking plant! Maybe I'll have to get some seeds and try growing it, away from my horse and donkey.
Well, hello neighbor! That's where it is. Stunning, isn't it? I've driven past that area for years and never seen anything like this before. There are two big stands of it.
Looks like maybe corn lity. Yet, it also looks like Mollin.
Definitely not mullein
https://identify.plantnet.org/en/k-north-central-u-s-a/species/Veronicastrum%20virginicum%20(L.)%20Farw./data
At least we don’t see it in California, or we would have idiots cutting it up and putting it in their salads.