A toxic plant, which we still remember today

When we were children my mother always used a plant for when we had skin allergies. I remember that the leaves had a very strong aroma and left our bodies completely green.

But thanks to that, the itching disappeared and we were glad that this natural remedy existed. Who would have thought that years later that same shrub would cause us so much sadness.

Let's know a little about this shrub.

Its scientific name is "Cestrum parqui", its common name is Palqui or black peach. It is a shrub native to Central and South America.

There are places where it is used to reduce fever. It takes a stem, scrape the bark about 20 grams and add a liter of boiled water. But in the form that is most used is for skin with scabies or ringworm.

The leaves are boiled and the resulting liquid is used to wash the affected area. But my mother crushes them and with the juice that came out naturally she used it for any type of allergy.

The photo you see is of the entire bush that comes out in our garden. We're always pruning it and here's why...

Its toxic power

The toxins are in the whole plant, i.e. leaves, flowers, bark and fruits.

Intoxication will occur after 48 hours and will be due to severe liver problems. Many farm animals have suffered from the consumption of this plant. 

Producing a fairly rapid death in them, they are the main affected. Although humans can also suffer from its toxicity.

My experience with her

In my garden there is a lot of this shrub, which proliferates very quickly, becoming invasive. It destroys the rest of the trees around, because it consumes all the water. A few years ago we had a male dog named Kona, who was the one we loved the most out of the 3 that lived at home. They each had their own space and lived in peace. One day I saw Kona a little sad and foaming all over the place. So I left him alone with water, I didn't want to give him food until he recovered, as in other occasions it had happened to him.

But this time it wasn't like that, 2 hours passed and she started screaming in pain. Her body was numb and she couldn't get up, so we called a vet. When the vet arrived Kona had died a painful death.

The vet told us that she was showing signs of having consumed something toxic. We noticed that there were a lot of dried palqui leaves in her house. We discovered that even the dried leaves have a lot of poison in them.

It was really sad and unfair his death, my sister loved Kona as he was a fighter since he was a little Puppy. He almost died from food poisoning due to a vet's negligence when he was just a puppy. But he survived and became our first adopted dog. We cried and still miss him today, he will always be someone very important in our lives.

So that experience left us very scared and every time we see one of these bushes we pull it out, even though it keeps growing the same over and over again.

I have a lot of cats and I don't want the same story to happen again. That's why those pictures are from when I last pulled up those plants, which will grow back in about 3 months, but which I will again have to pull up.

It's strange to feel anger towards a plant, but we do. Both my sister and I resent the fact that it grows so much and while our Matico dries up. The one that has been a great help to us with my animals' illnesses.

I wonder why something that helps us dries up and something that took away someone we loved proliferates 😢.

We must be very careful when we have pets and verify that the species of plants we own are not poisonous to them.