Digitalis Flowers

Type of Flower

Digitalis:

Digitalis is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and biennials commonly called foxgloves. This genus was traditionally placed in the figwort family Scrophulariaceae, but recent phylogenetic research has placed it in the much enlarged family Plantaginaceae.This genus is native to western and southwestern Europe, western and central Asia, Australasia and northwestern Africa. The scientific name means "finger-like" and refers to the ease with which a flower of Digitalis purpurea can be fitted over a human fingertip. The flowers are produced on a tall spike, are tubular, and vary in colour with species, from purple to pink, white, and yellow. The best-known species is the common foxglove, Digitalis purpurea. This biennial plant is often grown as an ornamental plant due to its vivid flowers which range in colour from various purple tints through various shades of light gray, and to purely white. The flowers can also possess various marks and spottings.

The first year of growth of the common foxglove produces only the stem with its long, basal leaves. During the second year of the plant's life, a long, leafy stem from 50 to 255 centimeters tall grows atop the roots of healthy plants. 

The larvae of the moth the "foxglove pug" consume the flowers of the common foxglove for food. Other species of Lepidoptera eat the leaves, including lesser yellow underwing. The term digitalis is also used for drug preparations that contain cardiac glycosides, particularly one called digoxin, extracted from various plants of this genus.

Other common names, purple foxglove, witches' gloves, dead men's bells, thimbles, fairy cap, fairy glove, fairy thimbles, fairy finger, fairybells, dog's-finger, finger flower, lady's-glove, lady's-finger, lady 's-thimble, popdock, flapdock, flopdock, lion's-mouth, rabbit's-flower, cottagers, throatwort, Scotch mercury, bloody fingers, virgin's glove. 

Foxglove, also called Digitalis purpurea, is a common biennial garden plant that contains digitoxin, digoxin, and other cardiac glycosides. These are chemicals that affect the heart. Digitalis is poisonous; it can be fatal even in small doses. It was the original source of the drug called digitalis. 

Originally introduced into this America from Europe as an ornamental garden plant, foxglove may now be found wild in a few localities in parts of Oregon, Washington, and West Virginia, having escaped from cultivation and assumed the character of a weed. It occurs along roads and fence rows, in small cleared places, and on the borders of timberland.

Although the leaves of the upper stem are particularly potent, with just a nibble being enough to cause death. The upper leaves of the stem are more dangerous than the lower leaves. Foxglove is most toxic just before the seeds ripen. It tastes spicy hot or bitter and smells slightly bad. This plant is so poisonous that ingesting only .5 gram dried or 2 grams of fresh leaf is enough to kill a person. Even inhaling the pollen can cause reactions to some people. 

There have been instances of people confusing the digitalis with the harmless comfy plant (which is often brewed into a tea) with fatal consequences. Other fatal accidents involve children drinking the water in a vase containing digitalis plants. Drying does not reduce the toxicity of the plant. The plant is toxic to animals including all classes of livestock, as well as cats and dogs. 

A single foxglove plant can produce over a million seeds, it does sow itself prolifically in unexpected places. And, being a biennial, it only produces a low cluster of leaves during its first year.

If you have small children, please don't plant them in your garden. Just because they don't bother you, doesn't mean they won't bother your child or even your friends visiting your home. Remember that even inhaling the pollen can cause serious reactions to some people. It is better to be safe than sorry! 

I still think that Foxglove Flowers are beautiful, but now I just view them as I drive down the road.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitalis 
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Information/Foxglove.htm

Nerium Oleander Flowers

Type of Flower

Nerium Oleander:

Nerium oleander is an evergreen shrub or small tree in the dogbane family Apocynaceae, toxic in all its parts. It is the only species currently classified in the genus Nerium. It is most commonly known as oleander, from its superficial resemblance to the unrelated olive Olea.It is so widely cultivated that no precise region of origin has been identified, though southwest Asia has been suggested. The ancient city of Volubilis in Morocco may have taken its name from the Berber name oualilt for the flower.Oleander is one of the most poisonous of commonly grown garden plants.

Oleander grows to 2–6 m (6.6–19.7 ft) tall, with erect stems that splay outward as they mature; first-year stems have a glaucous bloom, while mature stems have a grayish bark. The leaves are in pairs or whorls of three, thick and leathery, dark-green, narrow lanceolate, 5–21 cm (2.0–8.3 in) long and 1–3.5 cm (0.39–1.38 in) broad, and with an entire margin. The flowers grow in clusters at the end of each branch; they are white, pink to red, 2.5–5 cm (0.98–1.97 in) diameter, with a deeply 5-lobed fringed corolla round the central corolla tube. They are often, but not always, sweet-scented.The fruit is a long narrow capsule 5–23 cm (2.0–9.1 in) long, which splits open at maturity to release numerous downy seeds.

Nerium oleander is either native or naturalized to a broad area from Mauritania, Morocco, and Portugal eastward through the Mediterranean region and the Sahara (where it is only found sporadically), to the Arabian peninsula, southern Asia, and as far East as Yunnan in southern parts of China.It typically occurs around dry stream beds. Nerium oleander is planted in many subtropical and tropical areas of the world. On the East Coast of the US, it can be planted as far north as Virginia Beach, Virginia, while in California and Texas it is naturalized as a median strip planting.

Nerium oleander has historically been considered a poisonous plant because some of its compounds may exhibit toxicity, especially to animals, when consumed in high amounts. Among these compounds are oleandrin and oleandrigenin, known as cardiac glycosides, which are known to have a narrow therapeutic index and can be toxic when ingested. Toxicity studies of animals administered oleander extract concluded that rodents and birds were observed to be relatively insensitive to oleander cardiac glycosides.Other mammals, however, such as dogs and humans, are relatively sensitive to the effects of cardiac glycosides and the clinical manifestations of "glycoside intoxication". 

However, despite the common "poisonous" designation of this plant, very few toxic events in humans have been reported. According to the Toxic Exposure Surveillance System (TESS) in 2002 there were 847 human exposures to oleander reported to poison centers in the United States.Despite this exposure level, from 1985 through 2005, only three deaths were reported. One cited death was apparently due to the ingestion of oleander leaves by a diabetic man.His blood indicated a total blood concentration of cardiac glycosides of approximately 20 μg/L which is well above the reported fatal level. Another study reported on the death of a woman who self-administered "an undefined oleander extract" both orally and rectally and her oleandrin tissue levels were 10 to 39 μg/g which were in the high range of reported levels at autopsy And finally one study reported the death of a woman who ingested oleander 'tea'.Few other details were provided. 

In contrast to consumption of these undefined oleander derived materials, there is no toxicity or deaths reported from topical administration or contact with Nerium oleander or specific products derived from them. In reviewing oleander toxicity Lanford and Boor[18] concluded that, except for children who might be at greater risk, "the human mortality associated with oleander ingestion is generally very low, even in cases of moderate intentional consumption (suicide attempts)". 

Toxicity studies that have been conducted in dogs and rodents administered oleander extracts by intramuscular (IM) injection indicated that on an equivalent weight basis, doses of an oleander extract with glycosides ten times in excess of those likely to be administered therapeutically to humans are still safe and without any "severe toxicity observed".

Reactions to ingestion of this plant can affect the gastrointestinal system, the heart, and the central nervous system. The gastrointestinal effects can consist of nausea and vomiting, excess salivation, abdominal pain, diarrhea that may or may not contain blood, and especially in horses, colic.[6] Cardiac reactions consist of irregular heart rate, sometimes characterized by a racing heart at first that then slows to below normal further along in the reaction. Extremities may become pale and cold due to poor or irregular circulation. The effect on the central nervous system may show itself in symptoms such as drowsiness, tremors or shaking of the muscles, seizures, collapse, and even coma that can lead to death.

Oleander sap can cause skin irritations, severe eye inflammation and irritation, and allergic reactions characterized by dermatitis.

Reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerium