How to recognize poisonous houseplants

Gift plants make festive contributions to your overall decor, but they can be potential hazards to children and pets. Some plants are poisonous and can cause serious illness and, in rare cases, death.

The first step toward preventing plant poisoning is to make sure you can correctly identify every plant in your home by both the common and Latin names. Plant labels are not just for use out-of-doors. They may be discretely pushed into the soil of a potted plant or displayed as a decorative accent. Either way, if you own something that is not plainly recognizable, take the time to look it up in a reference book.

One way to guard against plant poisoning is to teach children never to eat non-food plants. This obviously applies to the outdoors as well; nothing in the wild should be consumed if it can't be positively identified. Even a nonpoisonous houseplant can be a risk if it is within a child's reach; leaves and soil can get lodged in the throat and cause suffocation.

In most cases, keeping your plants out of reach will prevent poisoning. However, there are some plants, like the coffee plant (Coffea arabica), that are highly toxic and should not be kept in your home at all if you have small children or pets. Pencil tree cactus (Euphorbia tirucalli), though not deadly, should be avoided as well, if it cannot be kept safely out of reach. The milky sap is intensely irritating to the skin and digestive tract.

Amaryllis (Hippeastrum), a common gift plant, contains properties that will cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea when ingested. Members of the Narcissus genus, like the daffodil, also are extremely poisonous, particularly the bulbs. This is something to keep in mind, especially if you store your bulbs in the refrigerator -- they are easily mistaken for onions.

The philodendron is a poisonous plant that is not extremely toxic. It causes a burning sensation in the lips, mouth and throat; this immediate discomfort will generally stop someone from consuming enough to cause a more severe reaction, like swelling and closure of airways.

Another common houseplant, the shamrock plant (Oxalis), can cause nausea, vomiting, kidney inflammation and, in severe cases, death due to kidney failure. It contains oxalix acid (the genus name offers a clue), which is toxic.