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Asked by anon-44771 to Amelia, Clem, Izzy, Sarah on 18 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Isabel Webb answered on 18 Mar 2014:
There are several reasons plants might be dangerous.
The most obvious to me is poisonous plants, like oleander, or deadly nightshade. Many plants can leave you very ill, or even dead. Generally we don’t have any really bad plants growing in the UK – which is pretty lucky.
Carnivorous plants are also dangerous, although not really to us. If you were a fly, you might be scared. Or a rat (in the case of the giant pitcher plant, which can eat them). These plants lure bugs in, trap them (usually using something sticky) and then release juices that can digest them – imagine an inside out stomach, and that’s what they do – and then absorb the nutrients from the digested bug. I think these are really fascinating – we keep some as ‘pets’ in our lab here.
Other plants might be dangerous because they injure you – for example thorns on roses, or stinging nettles. In a forest you might trip over vines or roots (if you’re clumsy like me..). It’s not that likely you’ll get seriously hurt, but it might make you a bit more careful next time.
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anon answered on 18 Mar 2014:
Many sailors will say that they never turn their back on the sea.
I feel this is true of plants too
Plants are filled with all kinds of chemicals, they have big thorns to defend themselves! They also grow in dirty bacteria rich soil!
All plants in one way or another should be treated with respect, better safe than sorry 🙂
xx
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Amelia Frizell-Armitage answered on 18 Mar 2014:
Many plants have evolved ways to protect themselves, in the same way that some police men wear bullet proof vests and carry guns. Plants have to do this because they can’t just run away if something is trying to attack them. How dangerous these defences make the plant depends on what it is trying to defend itself from.
For example a cactus has lots of spikes to protect itself from pests that try to eat it. These spikes are very dangerous if you are an insect or small bird perhaps, but to us they wouldn’t be dangerous at all – you just wouldn’t go near the plant, or if you had to you would be really careful not to touch them.
Some plants produce toxic chemicals to poison anything trying to eat it. Some of these poisons, for example chemicals produced by the Floss Flower, are only dangerous to small insects and wouldn’t hurt you. Other plants such as Hemlock produce poisons that can kill a person.
Another reason some plants are dangerous is because they are carnivorous and need to catch their food. Some examples you might want to look up are the Pitcher Plant and Venus Fly Trap. These plants are VERY dangerous to the insects and small animals that get eaten, but not at all dangerous for us.
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