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Plants are considered to be the backbone of a garden. The usually non-hazardous and safe-looking plants may have a life-threatening secret. There are many plants in the world which are a serious threat to the lives of humans and animals.
Let us look into some of the poisonous ornamental plants in the world.
Chinaberry: A native to the Himalayas and eastern Asia, it has been introduced to the southern United States. Chinaberry leaves have insecticidal properties. They are used for storage of grains and fruits. The 5-grooved seeds are used in making rosemaries or articles made of beads. This plant is considered poisonous. The symptoms of poisoning occur few hours after ingestion. These include vomiting, loss of appetite, constipation or diarrhea, bloody feces, stomach pain, pulmonary congestion, rigidity, lack of coordination and general weakness. Death may occur within 24 hours.
Wisteria: The romantic cascades of lush blue, pink or white are Wisterias. They are found in the South and Southwest of America. It is said that the entire plant, excluding the flowers is poisonous. Please do not attempt to eat the flowers, as precaution is always better than cure. Also known as the kidney bean tree, it causes vomiting, nausea, cramps and diarrhea on ingestion. Treatment includes intravenous hydration and anti-nausea pills.
Foxglove: The enchanting looking purple, white or pink bell-shaped flowers with or without dots are called Foxgloves. This pretty plant is used for the preparation of drugs for cardiac problems. If any part of the plant is eaten, it may cause nausea, vomiting, anorexia, diarrhea, abdominal pain, wild hallucinations, delirium, and severe headache. Depending on the dose, it may further cause heart block or increased or lowered heart rate. The treatment may include use of charcoal to absorb the toxins or pumping the stomach. Drugs like Lidocaine have to be administered for bringing the heart rate to normal.
Daffodils: William Wordsworth, writer of the lovely poem ‘Daffodils’ would have never imagined that eating the bulbs of this plant could lead to death. The poisonous bulbs on ingestion, cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The ingestion of the stem leads to blurred vision, headache and vomiting. Intravenous hydration and drugs may be recommended by the doctor to treat nausea and diarrhea. The calcium oxalate in the sap causes “daffodil itch”, which is often seen in florists. The symptoms include dryness, fissures, scaling, and redness of skin in the hands, often accompanied by thickening of the skin beneath the nails.
Deadly Night Shade: These night-loving plants have a shade of mystical danger and scientific caution. It is also known as the Bella Donna, which means ‘beautiful woman’ as the Italian women used the sap from these plants to dilate their pupils in order to make them look more beautiful. The use of this deadly plant spread throughout history. The ancient Greeks used it for hallucination and torture. The person who is given this deadly poison often fails to find the difference between truth and fantasy. It is said that the army of Mark Antony was given the Deadly Night Shade as a poison during the parathion wars. It was the same poison that Macbeth used to poison a party of Danes during a truce. It is used as a sedative in Nepal. Moroccans use it to increase the memory and also as an aphrodisiac. It is also used to fortify marijuna by illegal drug traders.
Manchineel tree: The Manchineel tree is native to Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America. Its leaves and fruits superficially resemble those of an Apple tree. The tree and its parts contain toxic substances. A white milky substance is secreted during rainfall. It is advisable not to take shade under this tree during rains, as mere contact with the substance causes blistering of the skin. One should be careful while burning this tree, as the smoke may lead to blindness. The fruits of this tree are also deadly. The sap, if used as poison can lead to a slow and painful death.
Yellow Jessamine: The eye-catching yellow flowers of this twining vine are often confused by children as honey-suckle. The plant contains toxic alkaloids gelsemine and gelsiminine. This plant causes nausea and vomiting. The poisoning from this plant is often fatal. The nectar gathered from the flowers may cause brood death in bees. The sap may also cause skin irritation in sensitive individuals.
These were a few plants which can be described as deadly. Despite the hazards, we grow many of these poisonous plants in our gardens for aesthetic and ornamental beauty of their flowers. Often, these plants crop up unknowingly in our backyards. It really helps when you know the facts about a plant before eating any part of it; however tempting it may be!
It is something that some people see as annoying, other people try to get it to grow on their gardens because of its beauty and still others couldn’t care less…it is called moss and at first glance it does not seem to be that interesting, just some green stuff growing on the ground, but when you take a closer look and really get into the world of moss, it is then that you can find a world that is virtually unexplored a world full of new things that become intriguing and unforgettable. It is the world of Moss.
Mosses are little tiny non vascular plants with little tiny roof-like and stem-like parts…now these are not real leaves, roots and stems because they miss the one very important ingredient which is vascular tissue. The Botanical word for mosses is Bryophytes, which when you translate it into a language that other people can understand means moss-like plants. Interesting huh?
You cannot just find moss anywhere, oh no, the best place to go moss hunting is in shady, moist areas, like say in the forest. There you are sure to find places where the forest floor is just covered in a beautiful layer of the prettiest green moss. These plants can be found all over the world, at all altitudes no less…mosses like to grow on trees just as much as they like to grow on the ground. You’ll surely find a lot of mosses growing around waterfalls; they just seem to love those moist kinds of areas!
When you take a look at a carpet of moss plants you might notice that each individual moss plant has its own little tiny stalk and leaf structures, which many times are only one cell thick! Mosses do not have roots; instead, God gave them these hair-like things that take the place of roots by absorbing water and minerals out of the soil.
One of the good things that moss does for us is the fact that is helps prevent soil erosion in the places where it grows, peat moss is especially good at this because it has its own special way of absorbing water and preventing it from creating runoff which in its turn would eat away at the soil. Not only that, but peat moss also has an antiseptic which can be used in emergencies! Some other things that mosses can do is to break down minerals that can be found in rocks.
When peat moss decays, it is a main factor in the making of something that we call peat…in some countries this peat is collected and dried and then used to heat peoples homes…another thing that you might be a little more familiar with is the use of peat in gardens. Gardeners like to use peat as a fertilizer for the soil and it is also used as mulch to help prevent water escaping the soil, it is really something.
Who would have thought that an organism that many times only has one celled stems, it does not even have any roots to speak of and yet it can do so much good, and it can help us in so many ways! It all points to the fact that we have a wonderful Creator who obviously knew what He was doing when He made moss, I mean, not only does it prevent the erosion of our precious top soil, but it also provides heat and fuel to keep ourselves warm in the winter and it also helps put food in the mouths of our children. How good can it get?!
One thing that is interesting about moss is the fact that has two types of plant, male and female…at the very beginning of the year, the female plant grows a tiny stalk which has a capsule (spore case). The spore case is released and it falls onto the soft moist ground, if it gets into the right kind of ground then the process of turning into a bunch of tiny moss plants begins. Really amazing!
Moss plants are intriguing little guys, they can capture you interest and then hold it, not to mention the fact that they are very beautiful and deserve a little bit of attention from us now and then!
The temperate forest biome, as its name suggests, is located in the temperate regions of the world i.e. the ‘northern temperate zone’ and the ‘southern temperate zone’ on the planet. It spans across the continents of North America, Europe and Asia in the northern hemisphere of the planet, and covers a significant portion of the South America and Australia in the southern hemisphere. Even with such vast expanse, temperate forest biome is not really as popular as the other biomes of the world, such as the rainforest biome or the tundra biome; and that is quite surprising considering that it is quite rich in terms of biodiversity.
Facts about Temperate Forest Biome
In a broad sense, the temperate forests are categorized into temperate deciduous forests, temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, temperate coniferous forest and temperate rainforests. Discussed below are the general details of each of these temperate forest types found across the world.
Temperate Deciduous Forest
Also referred to as the temperate broadleaf forest or temperate broadleaved forest, temperate deciduous forests are typically characterized by the presence of trees which lose their leaves every year as a part of survival adaptations. As with the other temperate forest types, even temperate forests have a temperate climate, with maximum temperature reaching 90°Fahrenheit in summer and 55°Fahrenheit in winter, and an annual precipitation of 35 to 60 inches. Other than the ability to shed their leaves and minimize transpiration, specially modified leaves which absorb sunlight as well as water help plants survive in the temperate deciduous forests. Species like oak, maple, elm, etc., are found in abundance in these forests.
Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests
At times simply referred to as mixed forests, these are temperate forests which are typically characterized by four layers – the canopy layer, sub-canopy layer, shrub layer and the herbaceous layer. The name mixed forests can be attributed to the fact that coniferous trees are included as a canopy component in these forests. Mixed forests experience somewhere around 24-60 inches of rainfall every year. The Himalayan broadleaf forests, Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests, East Central Texas forests, Mississippi lowland forests, etc., are some of the best examples of temperate broadleaf forests of the world. Plant species found here include broadleaf trees such as maple and birch, as well as conifers such as pines and firs.
Temperate Coniferous Forests
Temperate coniferous forest are forests in temperate regions which experience heavy rainfall and mild winters. These forests are typically characterized by the presence of gigantic trees such as the Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron gigantea) and the Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). As opposed to mixed forests which have four layers, temperate coniferous forests only have two layers – the overstory made up of trees like cedar, cypress, Douglas-fir, fir, juniper, pine and spruce, and understory of mosses, ferns and a few shrubs. The Klamath-Siskiyou forests in the United States and the Carpathian montane conifer forest in Slovakia are some of the best examples of temperate coniferous forests.
Temperate Rainforests
Temperate rainforests are forest typically characterized by a rainfall of somewhere between 200-400 cm and mean annual temperatures fluctuating between 39°Fahrenheit and 54°Fahrenheit. While temperate forests cover a significant portion of the planet, temperate rainforests are seen in pockets in North America, South America, Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe. Some noteworthy examples of temperate rainforests are Pacific temperate rain forests, Appalachian temperate rain forests, Valdivian and Magellanic temperate rainforests, Taiheiyo rain forests, etc. These forests boast of being the most biodiverse among the different types of temperate forests on the planet.
Temperate Forest Biome Animals
Even though temperate forests don’t boast of biodiversity at par with tropical forests of the world, there is no doubt about the fact that they provide shelter to a significantly large number of animal species. In fact, quite a few of these species are native to these forests of the temperate regions. Other than which type of temperate forest they come from, animals found in these forests can also be classified in accordance to the continent on which they are found. While North and South America are home to species like bobcats, bears, cougars, wolves, etc., marsupials such as koalas, possums and wallabies are endemic to the Australian continent. Similarly, badgers, boars, wolves, etc., inhabit the temperate coniferous forests of Europe, while animals like the Giant panda, red panda, etc., are found in temperate rainforests of Asia. Other than the animals mentioned above, the list of forest animals found in this region also includes several species of reptiles, birds, insects, microorganisms and primates.
With all these species to its credit, temperate forest biome does boast of being more biodiverse than various other biomes on the planet. If all these animals are able to survive in the temperate forests, it is only because of the super adaptation skills that they are armed with. While temperate forest biome plants shed leaves during the winter season to minimize transpiration and retain water, animals in this biome resort to hibernation to survive the harsh cold and scarcity of food during this season. At the same time, these animals have a range of other adaptations – including camouflage, migration, nocturnal behavior, etc., all of which help them survive in the dense forests of the temperate region.
With such biodiversity, there is no doubt about the fact that the temperate forest biome is important for the overall well-being of the planet. However, human encroachment – mainly for the purpose of agriculture, has resulted in widespread destruction in this biome. Other than large scale deforestation attributed to clearance of land for agriculture, even acid rain – caused due to industrial pollution in the surrounding regions, is known to cause harm to these forests. We have already lost a significant portion of the forest cover in this region, and if the damage continues at this rate we are bound to end up destroying all these forests, and disturb the ecological balance on the Earth.