5 Deceptively Dangerous House Plants

With Christmas rolling back into season, talk of flowers and plants aimed at the holidays inevitably follows. One of the most classic and iconic Christmas plants is of course the potted Poinsettia, widely known for its poisonous properties.
At Grower Direct, we strive constantly to dispel the myth that Poinsettias are dangerous plants, seeing as their sap will do nothing more than mildly irritate your skin temporarily. In fact, there are many plants that are far more dangerous that do not have this reputation at all! Listed below are 5 such common house plants that you might not truly know the gravity of!

 

• Peace Lily:

  This beautiful and popular plant boasts simple yet pretty white flowers that look like, but are not actually calla lilies. The internal workings of the Peace Lily contain a chemical called calcium oxalate, which is a well known skin irritant. It can also cause nausea and burning of the mouth if swallowed.

• Philodendron

   This Ivy like plant is also a culprit of the aforementioned calcium oxilate, only to a more dangerous degree. Ingesting a leaf of this plant can cause severe abdominal pain, and large amounts of skin contact can cause rashes and potentially serious allergic reactions.
  

• Ficus Tree

   Hailing from the same plant family as the rubber tree, the latex provided by this plant can and does cause severe allergic reactions, the likes of which have been known to cause people to fall into anaphylactic shocks! Best recommended that you get rid of the plant if you have any problems at all.

• Milkbush

   Also known as the Pencil Cactus(although it actually is NOT a cactus), this plant's sap is corrosive enough to cause severe rashes and irritate the eyes. While it won't threaten your life, this one will cause problems consistently as it requires pretty consistent pruning to be kept to a reasonable size.
  

• Dieffenbachia

   Some Older Amazonian tribes were known to use this plant to create poisons for combat! Ingestion of this bad boy will cause severe irritation of your mouth and throat, swelling on your face, as well as an EXTREMELY upset stomach! Just having a little bit of the sap on your skin will be extremely irritation to your skin!