Not all plants are safe to eat or even touch. Nettles sting and other plants, such as euphorbia and poison ivy, may blister your skin, Many quite common plants, including buttercups, are poisonous if eaten because they contain chemicals called phytotoxins. Strangely, some plant poisons (such as curare, digitalis and strychnine), are used in minute quantities to cure illnesses.
Potatoes are safe to eat when cooked, but the stems and leaves of the plants contain a poison called solanine. If potatoes turn green, they may also contain solanine
Ricin is extracted from the seeds of the castor oil plant and is more poisonous than cyanide or snake venom. Even minute doses of ricin can be fatal.
• Opium is extracted from the juice of a poppy and contains morphine. Small quantities of both are used legally as pain-relieving medicines and illegally as drugs. Both can easily cause death
The death cap is a highly poisonous mushroom. It is responsible for almost 90 per cent of deaths from eating fungi. The poison causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting.
Curare is extracted from the bark of certain trees and is used by South American Indian tribes to tip their poison arrows when they go hunting
• Deadly nightshade is also known as belladonna. It contains a poison called atropine. Less than ten milligrams could kill a child
• Nicotine is a yellow oily liquid found in tobacco About 50 milligrams of nicotine would kill an adult within minutes
The leaves of the purple foxglove contain digitalis and eating just a few can be fatal Digitalis is used in tiny doses to treat people suffering from heart disease.
• Strychnine comes from the kuchla tree, which grows in Myanmar and India. It is one of the most deadly poisons known
Some plants are indeed dangerous to our health and should never be consumed by us. Thank you for listing this as well.