POLSON m FLOWERS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 October 1924, Page 4

POLSON m FLOWERS

Azaleas and trumpet FLOWERS. SYDNEY, October 0. There are it seems, among the flowers that bloom in the spring those that carry with them the lurking danger of poison. A recent discussion on the point at tilt* Linneaii Society iii Sydney has provoked an interesting correspondence through the columns of the press. It appears that an employee in the Botanic Gardens had been rendered temporarily blind by coining in contact with the sap from a broken branch of. the plant known commonly as the trumpet flower, which produces large trumpeted-shaped flowers of a creamy-white colour. It was stated that there was a danger of anyone coining in contact, being rendered permanently blind. One of Hie speakers mentioned that the Government bad determined to prohibit the planting of Iceland poppies because tiie flowers poisoned bees. It was stated that the honey produced from azaleas was poisonous. Next, the white oleander was brought before the grave and sedate Linuean jury. Its sap was declared injurious not only to bees, but also to animals and human beings. I lie trumpet flower which had been temporarily forgotten was then called up tor

sentence. It was declared ail undesirable alien that should be dug on 1 ami burned, as it was impossible to tend it back to its native habitat, the West Indies. The poor trumpet flower was just about to bang it bead, feeling all that all the world was against it, when a doctor rushed into print, protesting

against the ml'ic" 1,1 *li •» it, up mill burn it, and questioning the fact that it had over produced blindness, even temporarily. The doctor says, however. that he had had the properties of the plant analysed by chemists, with interesting results. The chemists extracted an alkaloid which has similar properties to those of a trephine (the alkaloid of belladonna) and duboisine drops, the doctor says which are used daiiv by ophthalmic surgeons temporarily to paralyse iho accommodation of the eye, but which do not cause blindness, even temporarily, in noli less permanently. Tims lias the trumpet (lower snatched a fresh lease of life from the Linuean despots .