Our New Plants OR How To Not Poision Your Cat

While John and I were on vacation in Hawaii we went to the Huoa Okinawan Festival. They had some great Japanese food, entertainment and exhibits. One of the tents was full of plants for sale. While most of the plants were orchids, they also had quite a few succulents. John and I each picked two for our garden back home. I had only seen one of them before, but did not know the name of any of them. We asked some of the people working in the tent and they only knew the name of one of the plants, which we promptly forgot.

We carried these little plants all over Oahu during our trip and only had one incident with them when we tried to come home. The USDA made me wash all of the soil off of them before we could take them. I did not realize it would be an issue, since I figured anything from the island is bound to have infected the mainland already. I had time so I ran down to the bathroom and washed all the soil off and wrapped them up in wet paper towels and got back though security with plenty of time to catch our plane. We got home Sunday and the plants did fine on the flight.

Monday I went to a local nursery and picked up some cactus soil for them then headed home to plant them. It had been raining quite a bit so I decided to pot them in the house on the table

instead of outside.

Big Mistake! Curiosity nearly killed 2 of the 3 cats.

I have all the plants in the new pot, nearly ready to go outside, when Grizz comes up and snatches a leaf off of the largest plant. I quickly try to grab it and he quickly drops it. While I reach to retrieve the leaf Duma jumps up and bites the same plant and as I get on to her I notice she jumps down with that ew-that-tasted-awful cat face they make sometimes. And then she started to foam at the mouth. this obviously completely freaks me out and as she goes running though the house panicking, I go running after, also panicking. I caught her and looked in her mouth to see if there was a leaf in there, but did not see anything. With the phone in one hand trying to reach the vet and the cat in the other I throw her int he tub and try to get her to drink a huge amount of water out of the faucet. FAIL. She escapes. I continue to try to vet. I finally reach someone, while Duma is still foaming and now soaking wet to boot. I toss her in the cat carrier and off we go to the vet. There are no cops on the road (thank goodness) and by the time we get to the vet she has stopped foaming. The vet checks her out, says everything looks good, and sends us home. She seems to have been fine ever since.

The vets office has a link to a toxic plant database on their website and I searched for our plant on there, but not knowing what it is, I can not find it. So I ask my wonderful paleo-botany goddess friend Julia for help. She points me in the direction of two sites to track down my plants: Floridata and Plants Of Hawaii. After an hour of searching I was able to discover the names of three of the four plants:

Lizard Tail - Crassula mucosa

Jewel-Leaf Plant - Graptoveria amethorum (I think this is right...?)

Desert Rose - Adenium obesum

The last one is the one Duma had her bad reaction to (and luckily Grizz did not). This order of plants (Gentianales) is known to be toxic with some varieties (Pachypodium) being very poisonous to humans and animals. I am guessing Duma must have just gotten some of this toxin in her mouth, causing the reaction. I contacted the people who maintain the Cornell toxic plant database to let them know what I had discovered, since upon rechecking they did not have the Desert Rose on their list of toxic plants. They responded right back saying "I am glad your cat spit it out! This family is famous for making toxins that affect the heart...." Good to know!! So I just wanted to pass on the information that

Desert Rose (Adenium obesum) is toxic to pet and humans!! Warning!

I am glad to know this now so I can keep the plants out of the reach of all animals and humans from now on.

The other plant we bought is still a mystery - any ideas out there??


So that has been it for our post vacation drama around here. Hope all is well out there with you!