HERB - Period poisons, a little off topic

[Kathleen Keeler]

> I mean...Poinsettia's for heaven's sake!

(Melistra, can you get me a reference on that:  I've read both is/isn't and
would like a source -A)

>
> It just astounds me that I can walk into Wal-Mart and buy ...

> When I think of it, it just totally messes up my mind.
>
> Melistra
> Trimaris

 I wondered at that back when I got involved in the release of the first
transgenics a decade or so ago.
Fear of transgenic bacteria (small, invisible, mobile _germs_) is a whole
different thing from fear of transgenic plants (large, visible, s-l-o-w).  It
was easily seen that we don't fear even bad plants: dieffenbachias are in
medical office buildings and oleanders are planted as "street trees" in southern
California.

  There are many dangers in our lives (I got hit by a car this morning crossing
the street, not very hard, but he rolled forward into the crosswalk faster than
I backed up; we watch for tornadoes this time of year; beware infected cuts;
beware E. coli in your food...) apparently since reasonable people don't eat
strange plants and toddlers have to be watched anyway (they ingest many
undesirable items), nobody worries much about plants.

And, as was recently commented here by someone I didn't record (sorry!), if you
wanted to poison someone, you might use chemistry (something inorganic) rather
than a plant.  And if the goal was just hurting someone--cars or knives or guns
are much more dramatic than a seed or two.
[mental image of the distraught worker threatening someone with a monkshood
leaf!]

Agnes
Mag Mor, Calontir
kkeeler1 at unl.edu

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