I have never been much of a green thumb, in fact I can’t think of anything worse then spending time in a garden actually gardening. However these seemingly innocuous plants which are commonly available all over Australia have peaked my interest, even morbidly so… no cause for alarm people just passing curiosity, after all what are we without knowledge?
1. Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea):
- Works by using Digitoxin and Digoxin.
- LD50 is 0.3mg/kg (0.3ppm) .With a 3x’s the LD50 for a quick and clean one, it requires 10mg of digitoxin for every 45kg you weigh. Be sure to add a little more to be on the safe side. Foxglove upper leaves contain 0.3-0.62% digitoxin, so if you weigh 45kg’s, going on the safe side of 30mg, that would be 11.53g of low-concentration leaves. with high concentration leaves, that would be only ~5g to kill you.
- Foxglove is easy to recognise, the flowers look like a lot of bells hanging down from a central stem/trunk.
- Foxglove retains its poisoning potential after drying, great for drying, storing, then making nice, fresh, all natural herbal tea on a cold afternoon. Since it retains poisoning potential after drying, you can mill it into powder, fill up empty pills for ‘quick check-out pills’.
- Possible side effects may include nausea, vomiting, burning in the mouth or adominal area, death, coma, diarrhea, abdominal pain.
2. Oleander (Nerium oleander):
- Very Pretty flowers. The flowers spiral around. Very Pretty. You should get some just to look at, even if you are not going to kill yourself.
- Works with Oleandrin and Neriine [sic?] as toxins.
- A single ounce of leaves kills a 450kg horse. 20 leaves is fatal to an adult, make sure you take at least 40 to be on the safe side. Brewing them as tea may work. Mashed fresh oleander seeds has an LD50 of 0.5mg/kg (0.5 ppm). If my sources are correct, then that should be ~70mg for every 45kg you weigh. Other sources say 110mg/kg (110ppm), which equates to 5 grams for every 45kg you weigh.
- It has very pretty flowers that spiral around.
- Possible side effects may include nausea, vomiting, coma, excess salivation, tremors, death, increased blood pressure, abdominal pain.
3. Yew:
- Works with alkaloid toxin Taxine.
- The seeds inside the berries are the most poisonous, with only less than a handful killing a grown man. The rest of the plant is poisonous, except for the berries. The LD50 is 200-400mg/kg. The seeds have more of the Taxine. The toxin is very fast reacting, that some symptoms will not appear before death. Make sure you take lots to be on the safe side, if you live where yew is natice, then it won’t be difficult to gather enough seeds.
- The berries are red, and it is an evergreen.
- The berries are not poisonous, and are sweet and nice tasting. The seeds are the most toxic.
- Possible side effects may include: loss in perception, muscle tremors, death, collapse followed by convulsions, asphyxiation. Some side effects may not occur because the possible side effect of death comes to quickly to allow the other side effects to appear.