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☠️ Deadly plants: doses, timeframes, and confusions

20 plants that kill, with their toxin, the dose that becomes lethal, the time before the first symptoms appear, and the edible plant they are confused with — to help you spot and avoid them, never to use them.

★ Water hemlock (Cicuta maculata) kills with just 2.5 g of root — the most toxic plant in North America, ten times less than the amount of colchicum root needed to kill.
★ English yew is the only plant on this list where the fruit itself (the red fleshy aril) isn't toxic: only the seed inside, if chewed, is.
★ Autumn crocus, often confused with wild garlic, takes an average of 3 hours to show its first signs — leaving plenty of time for the meal to digest before raising the alarm.
★ Zero deaths have been recorded in modern medical literature for rhododendron honey ('mad honey'), despite over 1,199 documented cases: impressive, but not harmless.
★ For 12 out of the 20 plants in this table, no specific antidote exists: treatment comes down to flushing the system, life support, and time.
20 rows

Lethal dose : When a reliable value exists; otherwise see the detailed dose column — lower is better.

English yew ≈
3 mg/kg
Castor bean ≈
1 mg/kg
Autumn crocus ≈
0,8 mg/kg
Boxwood ≈
0,8 mg/kg
Laburnum (Golden chain) ≈
0,5 mg/kg
Poison hemlock ≈
0,17 mg/kg
Water hemlock (spotted cowbane) ≈
0,07 mg/kg
Monkshood (Wolfsbane) ≈
0,07 mg/kg
Deadly nightshade ≈
— mg/kg
Jimsonweed (Thornapple) ≈
— mg/kg
Oleander ≈
— mg/kg
Foxglove ≈
— mg/kg
Lily of the valley ≈
— mg/kg
Cuckoo-pint (Lords-and-ladies) ≈
— mg/kg
Rhododendron ('Mad honey') ≈
— mg/kg
Black nightshade ≈
— mg/kg
Black locust ≈
— mg/kg
Mediterranean spurge (and related species) ≈
— mg/kg
Stinking hellebore ≈
— mg/kg
European mistletoe ≈
— mg/kg
Sources (4)

Other numbers

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