On The Hunt For Poisonous Plants

[Music] everyone I'm Adam Harrison and today I'm on the hunt for poisonous toxic plant species that's right we're talking plants that can cause us harm because it's important to know how to identify these plants it's important to know where they can be found if we're interested in foraging for edible and medicinal plants and not only that but many of these poisonous plants a very interesting histories that I want to talk about in this video and they're being used currently in various industries and I want to do before it's too late because where I live there's a lot of deciduous forests and many of these poisonous plants are very ephemeral meaning they will disappear within a few weeks so I want to find them before it's too late so if you have a few minutes what do you say you join me on the search for poisonous and toxic plant species here we have one of the deadliest plants in the entire world this one is poison hemlock Coni Immaculata now even though this is a poisonous plant belongs to a family of plants I'm sure you're used to eating and the family of plants is a PACA so if you've ever eaten carrots or parsley or parsnips or dill or fennel or even celery then you've eaten a member of the a PACA family it's a very large family of flowering plants over 3,700 species worldwide poison hemlock is a deadly poisonous plant within the APA ca family so let's look at that Latin name for a second because it tells us a lot about this plant so cone ium the genus name comes from the Greek word CONUS which means to whirl about and perhaps it is something to do with the symptoms experienced upon ingestion of this plant and symptoms include ataxia which has lots of full control of body movements but also trembling and convulsions and Immaculata refers to the spotted nature of some of these stalks at least when this plant is older when it sends up its flowering stalk you'll see that the basis of these stalks have these purple splotches these reddish dots on them and many people say that this is Socrates's blood but why Socrates well one of the most notable deaths attributed to poison hemlock was Socrates in 399 BC he was administered juice from poison hemlock which led to his death within maybe five to six minutes so we see that ancient Greece many condemned prisoners were given the juice of poison hemlock to kill them now this is a biennial plant meaning it has a two-year life cycle the first year it lays pretty low to the ground that's what I'm looking at right now the second-year sends up the flowering stock and overall this plant can grow to be between three to seven feet tall the flowers are produced in white umbels now what I'm looking at right now are the dark green leaves the very dark green you'll see that they're compound leaves so they're divided multiple times and they're very fern-like and lacy in appearance now why is this plant so toxic why is it so deadly well that's a loaded question I don't think we'll ever really know the answer to it however we do know the compounds that are associated with the toxicity and what these compounds can do to the human body so the compounds are known as alkaloid these are nitrogen bearing compounds found ubiquitously in the plant kingdom that have physiological effects on biological life-forms including human beings like you and me and these alkaloids do not have very pleasant effects on the human body and so some of the alkaloids are known as Conine you read a lot about Kony on but also an methyl Kony 9 and con hydrate there's several other compounds but it seems like Conine is the most potent and it's the deadliest alkaloid found in poison hemlock and so Konya and has a nicotine like effect on the body but in a much more intense way so Konya and acts directly on a central nervous system an ingestion of Conine ingestion of this plant can lead to trembling it can lead to rapid respiration nausea convulsions coma and ultimately death death is usually attributed to respiratory paralysis and respiratory failure there's not a very pleasant way to experience the afterlife in my opinion toxicity is associated with many variables including the time of the year including soil conditions including moisture what part of the plant is harvested but every part of this plant is considered deadly toxic because every part contains all those alkaloids including kony on now the most interesting point about all this is that even though this is a deadly poisonous plant it had been used medicinally in Europe and also here in the United States so it seems like the poisons really in the dose so here in the United States prior to World War one over 30,000 pounds of the seeds had been imported to the United States and over 15,000 pounds of the dried leaves had been imported to the United States to be used in drug formulations so even though this may have been used in very specific instances for very specific conditions and very specific doses it doesn't mean that we should be using this as a medicinal plant this is definitely considered deadly poisonous plant that should not be consumed now because this is an invasive plant you typically find this in disturbed areas I'm seeing on this edge right here you also find it just like a weedy plant in people's garden beds sometimes but you really see it along the sides of roads and this is a nitro philic plant so it really likes soils with a high nitrogen content this point was brought here to the United States in the 1800s by Europeans as a garden plant but it escaped cultivation now it can be found pretty much in every single state in the United States it's found all throughout North America in Europe and other parts of the world so if you live in an area where this grows I strongly recommend that you get to know this plant and learn this plant in all of its outfits in the springtime in the summer time and in the fall right now which is what I'm looking at because if you're interested in forging for any plant especially members of the APHA family it's very important to understand which plants are deadly toxic in the a PACA family this is just one of them poison hemlock Tony Immaculata I'm definitely a good plant to know so I'm really excited to find this plant because this is one of those beautiful wildflower and plants in the eastern half of North America and it produces these beautiful fruits in the autumn so this is white vein berry we think about what Bain means we could probably determine that these fruits are probably not so good for us so this is considered a toxic plant it's also known as dolls eyes because the way that these fruits resemble china dolls eyes so this is in the ranunculaceae family what the heck is ranunculaceae well it's a buttercup family maybe you're familiar with buttercups you know there's flowers that come up all year round pretty much in our lawns those are buttercups if you've ever consumed goldenseal or taking a medicine made with goldenseal high dresses canadensis that's buttercup black cohosh is in the Buttercup family and this plant is as well so this is actia packy pota that's a Latin name and actia comes from the Greek word for elder because I guess the leaves might resemble elderberry tree leaves and maybe the fruits resemble elderberries I don't really know but Pocky pota is way more apparent that means thick foot because these stalks where these fruits are produced are very thick what else is unique whenever you look at these fruits you'll see there's a little black dot right at the tip of them that's why they call it dolls eyes that's not just like a random black dot there that's remnant of the stigma of the flower so the stigma is the female portion of the flower that receives the pollen and this is the remnant right there it sticks out long after the flower has disappeared and turn it into these fruits that's what you're seeing whenever you look at these dolls eyes plants now this plant grows be between 1/2 and 1/2 feet tall and it's a perennial plant maybe look at these leaves they're alternately arranged and they're compound leaves that are too and in late spring to early summer you'll see that there are white flowers that are produced in a flowering structure known as a Racine and each flower is only about a quarter of an inch across the berries are about a third of an inch in length now what's so toxic about dolls eyes well actually the toxicity of this plant is largely unknown it seems like there's some unknown glycoside compound which is responsible for the toxicity but if you do consume this plant it can lead to a tense stomach burning it can lead to vomiting and it can lead to convulsions especially the fruit so this is definitely considered a poisonous fruit producing species we wouldn't want to consume these fruits however whenever we look at the fern uncool acá family we see that there's one toxic compound that's very ubiquitous in that plant family that compound is known as proto an e mannan what the heck is a proto a nieminen well that's a compound that's produced whenever these leaves are crushed or whenever they're Bruce whenever we bruise these leaves or crush them there's actually another compound known as for an uncle in which gets enzymatically broken down into two compounds glucose that innocuous sugar compound glucose that's not that bad but proto a nieminen as well it's not all throughout that ranunculaceae family including this plant right here and that compound can lead to contact dermatitis so you don't want to get it a lot on your skin you probably wouldn't want to ingest it either now just because this is a toxic plant doesn't mean it hadn't been used medicinally here in the eastern half of North America we see that various native cultures had utilized this plant for menstrual support also to treat snake bites so perhaps it does have limited medicinal application but it has toxic compounds as well which could lead to as I mention before intense stomach burning vomiting and convulsion so we might not want to consume this plant however it's a beautiful native plant you live anywhere in the eastern half of North America I encourage you to get out and look for this plant in its remaining days because it won't be around too much longer the only plant that you might confuse this for would be other members in the actia genus you might confuse it for red vein berry but this time of year nothing looks like it with these white fruits in these thick pink stalks you might also confuse it for black cohosh but in flower these two plants are completely different and the fruits are completely different as well so this is a beautiful native plant we'll consider it a toxic plant known as white vein berry or doll's eyes actia packing pota here we have a native understory shrubs that contains many toxic properties however many cancer drug researchers are interested in this plant because it produces a very medically important compound we'll talk about that in one second so this is Taxes canadensis the candida you plant typically inhabits the north eastern half of the United States and north eastern half of North America and it's typically found in later successional force meeting areas that aren't recently cut over you're not really seeing it in areas with a lot of red maple trees a lot of pioneer species you see in areas with beech trees with sugar maple trees and Eastern hemlock trees so this is an evergreen understory shrubs you find it in the understory and it's a trailing shrub so it doesn't really grow to be more than a meter high whenever you think of the Eastern hemlock tree and it kind of resembles an Eastern hemlock tree Eastern hemlock Street grows to be tall it grows to be about 140 to 150 feet high not so with this one now the leaves of this plant are flattened but there's a needle-like tip at the point and if you look at the underside you'll see that there aren't two silver strips like you would find in the Eastern hemlock tree so the Eastern hemlock tree has these two silver strips in the bottom of each leaf that's the stomata and that's how the plan essentially breeds but you don't see it with this plant right here now you really don't find the Canada you plant in areas with high moose population high deer population because those animals really like to browse on this foliage and prevent it from thriving but birds also like this plant but for a different reason they really like those red arrows it's very like structures maybe you're familiar with those arrows when everything about cultivated you plants in many people's yards you see this red berry like structures that red arrow is the only edible portion of the plant you do not want to consume that see that's found within the plant so this is a conifer it's a cone bearing species whenever you think of conifers we think of the trees that produce cones like pine cones and spruce cones but where are the cones in this one oh I don't see any on this plant but that arrow inside that red fleshy structure is the seed cone and that arrow is essentially a modified scale it's a single scale covering the cone inside but it turns into the fleshly structure that can be consumed so long as you do not consume that inner sea so you definitely want to spit that out because it contains many toxic compounds speaking of toxicity what's so toxic about the candida you plant well there are classes of compounds known as tack scenes and taxanes and many of these compounds have cardiotoxic properties they can lead to convulsions they could lead to severe drops in blood pressure and ultimately they can lead to heart failure now interestingly those compounds also have cytotoxic properties specifically the taxane the excited toxic properties meaning they can destroy living cells and so this caught the attention of the USDA and also the National Cancer Institute in the 1950s and 1960s they work together and sent people around the world looking for species plant species that had chemo therapeutic properties and they analyzed over 30,000 different samples and found that the Pacific yew tree which is Taxes Bravo folia in the Barkat contain a compound known as paclitaxel and that's a taxane compound so it has toxic properties but when used very specifically against cancer cells it can basically stop cell replication in cancerous cells so paclitaxel now has a trade name which is taxall which is one of the most popular and utilized anti-cancer drugs chemo therapeutic drugs in the market it's being used for ovarian cancers being used for breast cancer and lung cancer even though it has been used successfully it also has some serious side effects as well but it is on the World Health Organization's model list of essential medicines that paclitaxel compound now interestingly because it was isolated from the bark of the Pacific yew tree that tree is prone to over harvesting because if you strip a lot of the bark from the living trees well the tree is not going to live anymore so a lot of researchers started looking for alternatives to that tree and they analyzed other taxes they found that this one taxes canadensis has that paclitaxel compound even found in the foliage so if you stripped the foliage and the researchers used the foliage where the plant can still continue to carry out most its physiological properties and in Quebec right now many specimens are being harvested by the cancer industry for that compound paclitaxel now just because this plant has toxic properties that doesn't mean that this plant hadn't been used for medicinal purposes in the eastern half of North America we see that multiple cultures prior to European colonisation utilize taxes can events of these and twigs may use the leaves as well for medicinal purposes however unless you know what you're doing I would definitely not consume any other portion of this plant say for that red arrow whenever you can find it just make sure you definitely spit out that seed this is a beautiful native understory shrubs if you live in north eastern half of North America get out and see if you can find this plant again you typically find it later successional forests look for the beech trees look at the sugar maples look for the Eastern hemlock trees and look for this beautiful plant which we call taxes canadensis or the Canada you so there we have three poisonous species we talked about Kony Immaculata him the poison hemlock plant the one that killed Socrates in 399 BC we talked about actia peki pota dolls is a plan who has poisonous fruits yet the plant had been used medicinally for menstrual support and the treat snake bites and of course we talked about taxes canadensis the Canada you the toxic plant that has red edible Errol's the plant also produces a medically important combo known as paclitaxel which is on the World Health Organization's model list of essential medicines thank you so much for watching this video truly appreciate it encourage you to get out there look for plants of all shapes sizes colors and apportion uses thanks again see you in the next video [Music] you

Channel: Learn Your Land

Views: 123,752

Keywords: Adam Haritan, Learn Your Land, Foraging, Poisonous Plants, Edible Plants, Poison Hemlock, Canada Yew, Doll's Eyes, White Baneberry, Sam Thayer, Wild Foodism, Mushrooms, Mushroom, Fungi, Fungus, Hunting, Nature, Outdoors, Permaculture, Primitive Skills, God, Universe, Daniel Vitalis, David Wolfe, Health, Nutrition, Botany, Mycology, Botanist, Mycologist, Fishing, Trapping, Autumn, Deadly

Id: Ci1k01mJ2zI

Length: 15min 6sec (906 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 01 2017