Foxglove

[jellyfish]

hi,pretty new to the forum. Just a relatively simple question but one a newby like me cant answer, ...Mother in law has a 3ft foxglove that flowered well this year, she has been told that its poisonous. So me being the father of a 4yr old and a 5yr old that have their cheeky little hands in places they shouldnt quite regularly at their nans. I was wondering if there is any danger to them ( ignoring the obvious of them devouring it lol )...thx for any replies in advance

[lily51]

Foxglove can be very dangerous. It is the source of the original heart medicine, digitalis, so its affect is on the cardiac system. I think all of the plant is toxic, but mostly the leaves. Some people get a skin reaction to leaves just by touching them.
As a medicine, it is "diluted" , but direct, concentrated, uncontrolled dosage from the plant can be very dangerous. Only a couple grams,in fact, can have dire effects.

I personally have never grown them due to this when my children were young and now I have grandchildren. My grandmother, a wonderful perennial grower of every imaginable specie, avoided it. This is also the recommendation of more professional growers than I.

There are plenty of other beautiful plants to grow without including this in your garden.

[Kisal]

All parts of the plant are toxic. I'm pretty sure it has to be ingested in order to have any effect, though. I suppose getting a lot of the sap of the plant in one's eye or in an open wound might be another way the poisons could enter the body, but I don't know that for a fact. A small child or pet wouldn't have to eat a huge amount of the plant in order to suffer negative, possibly fatal, results, but death from exposure to poisonous plants really is quite rare.

Foxglove is the source of digitalis, digoxin, and other substances contained in drugs used to treat heart disease.

My grandmother grew foxgloves. I don't recall having any great desire to taste them when I was a child. I picked them for bouquets and didn't get ill, so I don't think you have to worry about the children touching the plants.

JMO, but there are usually things around the average home that would be much more dangerous to a child. I always had poisonous plants around while my son was growing up ... rhododendrons, holly, Lily of the Valley, Squill, Oleander, Arum lilies, to name just a few. He never got ill from any of them. None of my pets ever suffered by eating any of them. I never got ill from any of the many, many poisonous plants my grandmother grew. According to what I found when I Googled the subject, in 2006, out of approximately 1400 exposures to plants containing substances like digitalis and digoxin, there were no deaths.

[applestar]

I think it's far better and useful to teach young children the names of plants and how or what they can play with. 4 and 5 yr olds are perfectly capable of recognizing plants -- it's kind of built into their pattern recognition for survival neural pathways.

I always made it part of a game to have my kids being me different flowers, leaves, and fruits THAT THEY CAN NAME. Or go around collecting all the soft furry/fuzzy leaves, or pointing out all the prickly ouchy plants, etc.

My kids have always played with foxglove flowers on their fingers and as fairy caps and skirts. They play with pokeweed fruits WHEN ripe by crushing them and painting with them. We also make a point of exploring the garden to ID edible vs. Non-edible vs. NEVER put in mouth plants.

It's also a good idea to teach kids to wash their hands after handling plants and bugs, and generally washing hands when coming in from the outdoors. I also have them gurgle when they first come in.

[Runningtrails]

There are a lot of common plants in flowerbeds and houses that are dealy poisonous. It is difficult to avoid them all. Daffodil bulbs are dealy, as are lily of the valley, castor beans, deffenbachia, poinsettia, ivy, philodendron and many more.