Do not eat the flowers! specially if they are Foxgloves.

Some flowers such as Nasturtiums (for salads) are edible, but many are not and a gardener is suspected of committing suicide by eating Foxgloves with enough poison in two leaves to kill him, before cutting his wrists with a gardener's knife.

The gardener and keen botanist had only superficial wounds from the garden knife incident, but died later the same day in May.

A post mortem examination showed high levels of digoxin in his body, a toxin found in foxgloves used to regulate and treat selected heart patients suffering from too rapid heartbeat .

The case pathologist, said: "This is very unusual. It is the first case" (of death by foxgloves) "I have ever had to deal with. The levels were very high indeed, out in orbit and not compatible with life."

His widow told the Sheffield inquest: "As soon as he said he had eaten foxgloves, I turned to my daughter and said, 'That's it'. He knew it was deadly poison. He was a keen gardener with a good knowledge of plants, including foxgloves.

Beware of foxgloves and keep your young kids away from toxic plants:

The spiky decorative white flowered perennial 'Bears Breeches' is another killer as are Ivies and Laburnum seeds (look like edible peas) contain toxic alkaloids. The common indoor foliage plant "Dumb cane" contains toxic blistering agents.

The above ground green stems of Parsnips also produce a severely disfiguring blistering-agent when exposed to summer heat - do not get Parsnip's sap on your skin when gardening in hot weather.(I have the scars to verify it).

Beware of the flowers :eek: Death by foxgloves, newslink>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/07/nsuic07.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/04/07/ixhome.html

Edible flowers - safe for the garden if you have young kids on the loose>
http://whatscookingamerica.net/EdibleFlowers/EdibleFlowersMain.htm

Truly a depressed and desperate man. If the foxgloves hadn't worked, he was prepared to handstand in his wellies, drowning himself with the running garden hose.

Eating Foxgloves was a gardener's way to quit by suicide. Much neater than the alternative that a son of the soil could have faced. Foxgloves or?.....

Or he could have gone by way of a self-incurred blunt force trauma by means of a fully laden watering-can or stabbed himself with a potting Trowel whilst strangling himself with his gardening gloves aided by a garot of garden twine.. It may be fitting for his poor widow to poetically consign his organic remains to the garden compost heap.

Aye, Gardening can be a dangerous past-time for those of an emotional frame of mind and always remember: Never consume alcohol whilst using a hoe (garden variety) or fork, as unintended self-harm may accrue.

Yeah, but like, ah...so fucking what? Not long ago the media was hopped up (if you will pardon the expression) over the newly discovered fact that Datura is POISON (ie - hallucinogenic). Everybody who grows plants knows all about Datura and Foxgloves, and now that you mention it, Larkspur and Rhubarb leaves as well. Lots of plants are poison and lots of plants are trippy. Death by foxgloves probably beats death by rat poison by a mile...I hope the fellow had a pleasant exit.

How do they know his wife didn't murder him by putting foxglove in his food?

Never consume alcohol whilst using a hoe (garden variety) or fork, as unintended self-harm may accrue.

That is one of my favorite activites is too drink beer and pull weeds.
Damn, now I have to garden while sober???

Also, when planting, picking hot peppers - wear plastic gloves or dishwashing gloves (not cotton). When I first started to garden I was messing around with some cayanne peppers I grew (still have some dried) and then - all I knew my young son needed help with something and whatever I touched, he touched and then rubbed his eye. The horror! He screamed, cried for 10 minutes. Then the phone rang with a telemarketer trying to sell me a jewpaper. You can imange how long that conversation was. Bascially flushing out the eye with cold water and time is what cured that.

Also I have read about about a little girl who went wondering around her grandparent's garden and came across some wild mushrooms. She had a banquet and came back to the house and died instantly.

Berries in high quantites can be toxic to children.

Just use common sense, watch your young children around the garden and teach the older ones not to eat or touch the plants.

http://www.dailyreckless.co.uk/images/bee.jpg

http://www.dailyreckless.co.uk/images/bee.jpg

Bloody hell, that is one dangerous flower!! :eek:

Who says Spring is an airyfairy season when its got monsters like that among the bushes? :rolleyes:

http://www.dailyreckless.co.uk/images/bee.jpg
If we could attract Erich Gliebe to botanical oral sex, he might think twice about having his penus enlarged
http://tinypic.com/2bo58i

If we could attract Erich Gliebe to botanical oral sex, he might think twice about having his penus enlarged
http://tinypic.com/2bo58i

LoL! You are the king of the one liners!:D

http://www.dailyreckless.co.uk/images/bee.jpg


That looks like a photoshop image. A morphed cat mouth on top of that ugly flower. Why does it seem Britain has some ugly flowers?

http://img.tfd.com/thumb/8/85/Catmouth.jpg