(bright music) - Welcome to Digging Deeper with "Backyard Farmer".

I'm your host, Kim Todd.

On Digging Deeper, we have in-depth discussions with extension and industry experts about those important landscape topics.

Tonight, we are talking about plants that poison with our special guest, who is Cheryl Dunn, who is just a fabulous herbarium curator.

She is a research person.

She is a teacher.

And she's mostly just a really good plant person.

So Cheryl, thanks for doing this.

I know you have small children, you have lots of things to do with classes starting.

And yet, this is one of those topics that we on "Backyard Farmer" get all sorts of identification questions, and they are typically revolving around what is this in my yard?

Should I keep it?

Should I kill it?

Will it hurt my children or my pets?

And that's what you're good at.

So let's start with whichever plant you want to start with.

- Well, thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Well, I thought we'd start with kind of the biggest one here, so we can kind of move things around.

But I thought I'd start out with what's called poison hemlock.

And so it sounds like you've gotten some questions and I've gotten some questions in the past too.

And really after that flood we had a few years ago, people's yards were inundated with poison hemlock.

So it's a really important plant to kind of understand and know, because all parts of this plant are poisonous.

The most poisonous parts are really the seeds that are on it.

But again, like I said, everything is poisonous.

And so this is really what it looks like right now.

- [Kim] Dead.

- It's dead.

(Kim chuckles) 'Cause it really starts in the spring as a rosette and then it starts growing and then this is what it looks like now.

So this is just kind of the leftover sad bits.

But you can see the seeds up top here, they're barrel shaped.

But, I did happen to find, I'll set this guy down here real quick, I did happen to find a little bit of green left and you can see they have finally dissected leaves, very fern like, okay?

And what you can't see on this one and you can't see on the one down there, is that usually the stems of poison hemlock have purple spots on them.

So the purple spots are really descriptive of this one.

And also, usually you can't smell it now, but it has an awful odor to it.

So that's another characteristic of identification of it as well.

Most times when there's any kind of poisoning, it's because kids have used them as peashooters or whistles because the stems are hollow.

I don't know if you can see that, but they are hollow, okay?

So they've put it in their mouth.

And then adults have been poisoned 'cause they mistake it for maybe a wild parsley or a wild dill.

So that's the main problems with poison hemlock.

So it's a- - Beautiful, but deadly.

- Beautiful, but deadly.

So plants in this plant family that this comes from, it's the carrot family, celery, it's your dills, it's all those, some of those great herbs, you need to make sure you know what you're eating.

So if you're outside and you're picking something, make sure you planted it and you know what you're consuming because you can really go a bad way if you get in this one, so... - All right, perfect.

And then you have another big, giant one that we have been getting a lot of questions about as well, from start to finish this season.

- Yeah, so pokeweed is what this one is.

And I brought in a really huge sample of it here, right?

And so you can see that it's got a very distinctive large leaf to it.

It's got the smooth kind of margins and it has a lot of veins to it.

It's also got a pretty nasty smell too.

All of these kind of have this odor to 'em, right?

But what it starts out with, and it's got this reddish, usually has a pretty reddish stem to it, but it'll start putting out what are called racemes or these stalks of flowers here.

And they're usually whitish and then they start turning into more of a berry.

And let me get a really good green, so they turn into green berries and then they go even further and get into these very beautiful purple berries.

And that's where the problem comes is because those look really inviting to eat to kids.

And so when I see 'em in my yard, when I see 'em on walks, when I see 'em out where kids are going to be playing, I usually take them out pretty quickly because they can be poisoned by those berries.

But this plant, it grows everywhere and it grows really big and it can get up to about eight feet tall.

- [Kim] Right.

(chuckles) - [Cheryl] And so it really doesn't discriminate, like really when it comes down to it, there's those green berries that you can see, when it comes down to it, it may get a little bit smaller because it maybe is too dry or it's not the best of soil, but it's still gonna grow and there's gonna be a lot of it.

And I've seen a lot of it this year, so... - Well, and berries, or birds and squirrels spread it.

So somehow or another, they can spread it without going belly up, right?

- Right.

- And it's perennial?

- Yeah, and so it'll keep coming back.

It's really good, obviously it reseeding itself too.

So it'll keep coming back and you'll keep fighting it here or there, but you can really take it out by just knocking it down and then, doing whatever you want chemical-wise.

I always put some kind of vinegar down, so then that kind of takes it out for a while too.

So this is one to be careful of.

I always tell my kids, "If I don't tell you can eat it, you're not gonna touch it outside."

And that's kind of my rule, especially with something like this.

We have currant bushes.

Currant bushes, that's okay, but boy, that berry can look similar to this one.

So you wanna be careful with that one.

- All right, then you wanna start with our milkweeds or viney stuff.

- Well- - So much cool stuff.

- I know, I've got a lot of stuff here.

So why don't we just, I'll just talk here real quickly about some of our milkweeds, because we love our milkweeds so much because they're for our pollinators.

- [Kim] Right.

- So this one's my favorite.

This is butterfly milkweed.

But I wanted you to see just how vibrant it can be with that orange, so there's a bunch of different colors of the different milkweeds.

There's the pinks, there's white, and they're just gorgeous.

And so we love to have them for pollinators.

And they have a very distinctive flower to 'em, if you can see here.

It's almost like they have petals going up and they have petals going down, and so that's distinctive of the milkweed family.

The other thing is, is a lot of times the milkweed, also it's called milkweed because it will essentially bleed.

And this one doesn't bleed as much as this more common one here, you see this quite a bit.

And so it's a pretty big leaf and let's see if I can get it to really start putting out some sap here.

And that's really the problem where it starts getting this milky sap that comes out, and that's the stuff that can cause some rashes on hands.

If you get it into your eyes, you can have some permanent damage to your eyes.

So you wanna be careful.

Any plant that kind of does what I call bleeding or produces this milky sap, you wanna be careful of 'cause it can do some stuff to your eyes.

So if kids are out picking plants in the yard, this is one of those you may wanna have them wash their hands or not get near when they get to it.

Now, the interesting thing with the milkweeds is this one has a really big leaf to it, but actually as the leaves get smaller, the plant gets more toxic.

And so I deal a lot in livestock problems.

And we have about 17 plants in the state of Nebraska that can cause serious loss in our livestock, and this is one of them, so whorled milkweed.

We have Plains milkweed that is more in the western part of the state, but this is our whorled milkweed.

So it's got really narrow leaves to it, these white flowers and everything up there at the top, it's nicely blooming right now.

All of the milkweeds are blooming right now.

So again, our pollinators, our monarchs that are coming in, are loving them, but it's just one of those things we need to be careful of.

There have been cases where dogs have come along and chewed on the leaves and then have had problems.

So again, something to watch out for, but it doesn't mean you can't have them in your yard.

- And I think that's a really good point, Cheryl, because we hate to we to have people think, "All right, let's tear everything out of our landscape just in case."

Or, especially if there are people who are on acreages or in the country, they want a lot of the native plants.

And with the good sometimes comes the bad, just to be careful with it.

- Right.

And really livestock, and so many instances of poisoning, livestock won't eat it if you give them enough food and you don't put them into pastures or area that these are for bedding, for when they need to lay down and stuff.

And so there's ways to mitigate all of the poisonous or toxic plants, for sure.

- Perfect.

All right, let's talk about those viney things, like poison.

- So, yeah, so poison ivy and it's one of those that I didn't want to bring a fresh sample in, right?

It's in a plant family that has not only the poison ivy in it, and we've got our sumacs, but we've also have pistachios and mangoes and cashews.

And so a lot of times when people are really allergic to poison ivy, they also get the tickle in the throat from eating cashews or they can't get near some of that other stuff.

So it's really interesting, especially the skin of the mango, you can have a reaction if you're eating some of the mango off the skin and your lips can swell, that's from that same kind of oil.

So it's all based upon this oil and I'm not gonna say the oils name, 'cause I butcher it every time I say it.

It's like urushiol, it's got that U beginning of it, but that oil is what sticks around.

So instead I brought some plant mounts, I'm gonna take this glove off here real quick, some plant mounts of it, and I've got varying sizes.

So this one you can't see very well with the leaves of three, but we learned hopefully, it's been the old saying of, "Leaves of three, leave it be."

And that's kind of the biggest thing is that if you see something with three leaves, you know what?

Don't mess with it.

We have two varieties in the state.

We have one that does more of the vining and then we have more in the western part, they make almost more of a subshrub, like a shrubby type of appearance to it, so... And you can really find these anywhere.

They grow anywhere, they hide out, you don't know- - [Kim] They crawl up trees.

- They crawl up trees.

This is a really big, extreme poison ivy from Missouri.

But look how large the leaves are in this one.

So you can see very distinctive the leaves of three.

And see the margins on this one in particular, you can see that it's got some teeth to it, but it doesn't have to.

And I think that's what confuses people.

The sizes change, the leaf margin is inconsistent and so people just kind of get confused with what they're looking at.

So that's important as well, to understand that it's a variable plant in size and in shape.

Right now, we're waiting for it, it's starting to turn kind of that yellow and it's gonna be nicely red into the fall.

And so it's important though, when you mess with a lot of these plants and you saw me with a glove on, it's important to a wear glove.

But if you walk through it, you can have those oils on your shoes.

If you're using equipment to get rid of it, you can have the oils on the equipment.

So you can keep reinfecting yourself if you don't clean those properly.

And if you think you got it on your hands, get back and wash your hands as quickly as possible with some Dawn and scrub it really, really good, but that doesn't necessarily- - Do it.

- That doesn't necessarily do it.

- We wanna remind our audience to follow us on Facebook.

Give us all of your comments, pros and cons, send us questions.

Let us know whether you love what we're talking about.

Give us also suggestions.

And of course, Cheryl is doing such a fabulous job and there's so many plants, we'll probably have to have her back later.

So have you had bad experiences with any of these?

And you were just gonna talk about Virginia Creeper as one of the people things.

- One of the ones I think that people get confused on, yeah, is Virginia creeper.

But if you can see here, it's got more of the five leaflets going on and so, and not the three, but you can see the margins can again, kind of throw people.

They've got some teeth on that edge of that leaf, that makes people confused.

And this one also is a vine, right?

So anything with a vine, it gets really concerning after a while, but- - And Boston ivy is another one that people confuse it with.

- [Cheryl] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, so it can easily be confused, but I always err on the side of caution, I got the lightest touch of poison ivy when I was cleaning it up just last year.

And so I had like the tiniest little blister.

But I have seen some bad cases of poison ivy and I've seen it where you're doing a prescribed burn and the areas kind of infested with poison ivy and then it's in the smoke and you can get it down into your lungs as well.

So I mean, there's some worst case scenario, those kinds of things.

But again, if you keep an eye out and try your best, but it's sneaky, it hides out, so... - Let's talk about the grasses, because it's not necessarily toxic, but it can certainly be painful.

- Yeah, so grasses have, well, not all grasses, I guess I should say, but there are several grasses that have kind of a way that they like to spread their seed, right?

And what's so great about all these plants is that they're trying to defend themselves, right?

And then they're trying to reproduce as much as possible.

And so with grasses, they like to do the same thing too.

And I don't know if you can see this one as well, but it's got these long almost needle-like structures on it, okay?

And those are called awns.

And what happens with those is they get, you know, we brush by them or dogs or other animals brush by them.

And then those awns will attach then to, of course this one's not gonna come off, 'cause it's not as dried as it should be, but then it will attach to whatever animal that is coming by and that's how it transports it seed.

Then once it gets on something, it starts to dry out even more and it will start twisting.

So I've had these awns like twist into my sock and irritate me quite a bit and various grasses, not all grasses, but various grasses have that.

So it's important, as we go into the fall and these grasses start to dry out, in particular, I've got foxtail barley here, I've got cheatgrass here, and I've also got little barley kind of stuck in here, he's kind of a smaller one, that you watch your pets and particularly, your dogs, when you take them out hunting or any of that, if they're in a roadside ditch with a bunch of dried grass, those awns can get up into their paws.

It can get into their mouth.

It can get into their ears, into their eyes.

And so it can sit there and can fester, but it can also actually move into their body and move through their body.

So it can cause major problems internally just because these awns have worked their way in, and it's happened in sheep and some other livestock as well, but dogs can have it particularly bad.

- Wow.

- So it's important to check their paws and their ears and their mouths, and just to not let them go in areas that are gonna have a lot of dried awns like this.

I mean, if you see something like this, this isn't the kind of material your dog should be walking through, yeah.

- For you it's bad in the socks.

- Yes, and it's bad in the socks too.

- So let's talk about a couple of books that you brought.

- Yeah, so I- - Some references for people.

- I just brought a couple of books here.

The extension office has this one available.

It's just $12, or you can get a free PDF online, which is nice.

And so this one is the "Nebraska Plants Toxic to Livestock".

And so it has those 17 plants in it that I talked about.

And it's got about 100 plants total of varying levels of toxicity in it, as well as some crops too.

And it does talk a little bit about some of the human aspects of things too, if children have been poisoned or adults, things of that nature.

So this is a nice one to have and again, it's a free PDF that you can get online.

So that one is nice.

Now, with this one, it just has pictures, I'm gonna open it up here, it's got drawings in it, okay?

And it's got a picture of the state of Nebraska so you can find out where all of those are located.

And some people don't like drawings and that's okay.

I like drawings because it shows fine, fine detail of plants, but I totally understand when you don't like it.

But then there's also the "Weeds of the Great Plains".

And this is through the Department of Ag and it's actually a really good deal, I can't remember how much it is now, but if you go look up "Weeds of the Great Plains", you can get a order form through the Department of Ag.

And this one has those color pictures in it.

And it has drawings in it as well, but it's got, it's really nice in the sense that it's got the color photos, but then it also talks about kind of some poisonous nature to things and gives you the highlights for how to identify them as well.

So this is another good reference.

- [Kim] And that one has just been reissued.

- Yes, this one just came out just within the last, probably about year and a half.

- Right.

Right.

- Yeah.

- Well, and unfortunately, we have all sorts of other things that we won't be able to talk about, other than to say, if you find something like this in your home landscape, don't eat it- - Yeah.

- if you're a child and this is related to Jack-in-the-pulpit, right?

- Yes.

- So this is arum.

What is the issue associated with those arals.

- Yeah, so it's one of those, I can't remember exactly the compound that kind of goes into some of that stuff, you might know better than me.

I'm kinda more on this side of things, but I do know that yeah, there's a high level of toxicity that goes along with that one as well if those are eaten.

I can't remember.

Dogs can eat that one too as well, right?

- Certain animals can eat all sorts of things, which is really weird and off-air we had the discussion about allium, anything in the onion family, and cats and dogs, which you've had, I've had, but I have never had a cat or a dog eat one of my alliums, so... Again, we want to make sure that people are not necessarily afraid of everything, just cautious about what they're using in their landscapes.

- Right, and knowing, yeah, I mean, and that one I think can cause some more intestinal problems with dogs, but then it can lead to more too, if they eat so much of it, but like, yeah.

- Right.

And I think we have a list of aspca.org, which is, I don't remember what it stands for, but it's got the poisonous plants on it for toxicity, for dogs, cats, and horses in particular, so that's a good start.

And just like everything else, Cheryl, I am extremely allergic to poison ivy, and some people can roll in it and just laugh heartily.

So it just really does make a difference in your own genetics, I think.

- Right.

Right.

And it does change, though.

You may be, I think it affects about 50% of people, is kind of what they say, but it can change over time, so you can become quite allergic to some of these as you get older, so... - Exactly.

Well, and that is all the time we have for Digging Deeper with "Backyard Farmer" tonight.

We want to say thanks to Cheryl Dunn, of course, for coming in and talking to us today.

We will be back next time with another in-depth discussion.

Do be sure to watch "Backyard Farmer" live every Thursday at 7:00 pm central on Nebraska Public Media.

Thanks for Digging Deeper with "Backyard Farmer".

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