…from trimming a plant.
It seems everything about euphorbias (spurge) is poisonous. She had trimmed the euphorbia we brought in, and began having eye pain. A fast check of the internet turned up “sap in the eye: blindness,” seeds–death. Fumes off the living plant can be harmful to the eyes. Etc. We called OSG for advice and headed for the ER.
Two hours later and several hundred dollars the worse, I fear, we are back. Jane is fine. We at least provided a fast education on euphorbias for the ER staff. A stain test turned up no lesion or abrasion, and Jane’s action of a warm water rinse proved the right thing to have done.
So…take it from us, dear friends. We have swept the floor to be sure there are no seeds for the cats to get into: the plant will be trimmed outside the house, wearing gloves and goggles, and all pieces discarded.
And Jane has a prescription and a wad of instructions.
We are very glad to have found out about euphorbias, which are a gloriously beautiful green plant, the delight of bees, and just very nasty to those to trim them. The word from the US Poison Center: if you get the sap straight in the eye it is epic pain, and goes downhill from there, including blindness.
So wear goggles and gloves, fellow gardeners, with this one.
Crikey. I’d have thought to add, “or better still, don’t plant them!“
crikey is my reaction too – don’t they come with a safety warning? actually so many garden plants are poisonous – lilies, for instance ..
I rooted out the euphorbia that I inherited in my garden, but they keep coming back year after year, so have to be extra careful when weeding in that section.
I also won’t have lilies in the garden or the house, because they’re so poisonous to cats.
I’ve been doing some reading on euphorbias lately and have seen *no* mention of any poisonous parts or any words of caution. I find this odd as most plants with any problems come with large warnings. Pointsettias, rhododendron, lilies all come with dire warnings
I am VERY GLAD that all is well with Jane. Damage to eyes is bad for anyone, but for visual artists devastating. I’m sorry, thoughts for Jane’s well being should have been first, plants are replaceable, people are not.
Glad all is well, hopefully no lingering affects for Jane.
the first google on euphorbias brought up this mild warning – All Euphorbias exude a milky white sap which can be a skin irritant and, of course, should not be ingested. hmmm.. in red and underlined, but nothing about causing blindness.
yes, what a relief!
oh, here we are – the name Euphorbia is considered by many in South Africa as synonymous with poison. very nasty .. http://www.theamateursdigest.com/epoisons.htm
Ouch, I hope she recovers quickly.
The other day a friend of mine said she was battling something called Giant Hogweed at the bottom of her garden. I had no idea things like that could be found in Britain. I tend to stride through the undergrowth without a care in the world on the assumption of not encountering anything worse than nettles.
I actually enjoy a good nettle sting :-/
Ouch! I am glad Jane is doing well. That’s frightening, especially knowing it could have led to worse than just a simple burning sensation in the eye.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I found euphorbia all around my house and farm. I just don’t do much trimming, anyway, so it’s just as well. I noted that echinacea is also in this family. Hmmm. well, tomatoes are a member of the nightshade family, so I can see where one might be healthy and then another deadly.
Be careful out there!
We were a little dismayed that an operation like Wayside Gardens wouldn’t say. I happened to note it when Jane asked me to look up care and feeding of her plant, and mentioned it to her—but many plants we commonly have without problems, have cautions. Rhodies are an example.
She was clipping the plant, pruning back, in the kitchen, and happened to remark on the abundance of sap. I looked. It is a whitish sap, a natural latex, quite abundant. And then I recalled the warning that that sap is poisonous, so I cautioned her. She immediately stopped and washed her hands; we had dinner; and then she complained of her left eye burning. Which got markedly worse fast. She thought she might have wiped her eye. She went in to rinse the eye, came back, and by that time I had googled ‘eye euphorbia’ and gotten an alarming warning saying ‘immediately to the ER’.
She went back to rinse her eye more thoroughly. I called OSG, who has had personal experience of local ERs, and OSG wasn’t answering either phone because of political callers; but I left her a harried message, and went on toward packing Jane up for the ER—then OSG called with a recommendation; and we went there.
It was a good choice. ERs I’ve been in are sort of the messy side of a police precinct, stabbing victims lying in the halls, druggies screaming, police all over, etc, and this was much more like a high-priced clinic, tranquil, fairly expeditious, (hour and a half over all), and competent. They checked the Poison Control Center, finding much what’s reported here—one report saying not so bad, and the other promising doomsday, then checked her eye for abrasions and lesions, found no impairment, gave her a prescription and we were on home. The official Poison Control word on the plant is—extreme agony and potential eye damage if you get the sap in your eyes. Being latex, it coats the eye, and is prone to sink in and cling. It causes extreme pain, the more extreme with larger doses, like a drop flicked into your eye from a springy branch, and the seeds are lethally poisonous, but one isn’t sure in what quantity. We had brought in a seeding plant which was shedding all over the floor, right by the cat dishes.
There is some sort of religious figure in the southwest, who suffered extreme eye injury from an exudate while trimming a plant, and is still recovering—after weeks, though they say he will make a full recovery; and I’m suspicious this is the plant in question. I was certainly thinking about that case while sitting with Jane in the ER.
Well, it is getting trimmed outside, with goggles, until there is no possibility of problems. It’s a beautiful plant, and Lord knows, we will pay enough for this one! We have insurance, but…
That is why the plant is supposedly a mole repellent. I suspect it is only if the moles run into it. There are many species of euphorbia. Probably the toxicity varies accordingly, and individual sensitivity undoubtedly also varies.
When my folks moved to Florida my mother attached a grossly overgrown Confederate Jasmine (no relation to real Jasmine) She found out the hard way that that also is highly irritating.
My own surprise came when I doing a spring clean and uprooting the parsnips that had evaded winter harvesting. They had already started growing the most enormous flower stalks (very pretty in the right place) The next day I had the most awful hand irritation. The Dr prescribed cortisone. No result …, and at that time I had not figured out what had done for me. I eventually recalled a mention in an English gardening book that some people react to the parsnip sap whach actually causes a chemical burn.
Providentially I ran into a traditional Chinese medical practitioner who prescribed a huge bag of assorted plant parts to be simmered into a tea which was used as a soak. One treatment was all that was necessary.
Potatoes are also in the deadly nightshade family and apparently the chloroplasts are the source of the toxin. A potato that is too close to the surface will grow chloroplasts in its skin, turn greenish, and contain at least some of the toxin and shouldn’t be eaten. Another example of edible plants within a toxic family is the Camas lily which the Camas indians and other Western tribes used as a staple in their diets but presumably not the Death Camas.
Poinsettias have that same irritating latex.
poinsettias are related to euphorbias, or are a member of the euphorbia …
Yikes! Honestly, I think I’d exile, that is, give the Euphorbias to some more hardy and adventurous gardener. Not very “eu-” if you ask me. (Not that anyone did ask me….)
Best wishes to Jane for a speedy recovery, and best wishes for the speedy recovery of your bank accounts.
Having had intermittent eye trouble for more than two years now – which turns out to be hereditary, but I’m the first one to get symptoms, my sympathies are with Jane and she might want to take it slowly with activities that cause eye strain usually, like staring at a pc monitor for hours – at least for a few days.
I am glad Jane’s feeling better. I won’t put that plant in my garden, thanks to you.
My best wishes to Jane for a quick recovery! I hadn’t realized spurge could be so dangerous. My sister calls it “the scourge of the spurge” because it’s so invasive, but the variety in our yard is apparently among the milder ones. It seems there are over 2400 varieties, and I found one website that claims that in some of them, the sap is from 10,000 to 100,000 times more caustic than the hottest chili peppers. Of course, they didn’t say which varieties, so I think I’ll use more caution when weeding, just in case.
Appears to be as dangerous as that wood that had to encased in resin, in Cyteen.
I knew that spurge was poisonous and could be an irritant, but luckily haven’t had any trouble with my two plants (either in them sending seedlings everywhere or in irritation). I make darned certain not to pick any of them when I do ‘Bunny farming” (weeding the garden and getting daily nibbly bits for buns). In fact, one of the really very pushed plants the past couple of years by garden companies is the “Bonfire Euphorbia,” which I have. Can’t say it is quite as lovely a performer as in the catalog photos, but very nice and luckily no irritation. I shall be extra careful in the future, though.