Pretty Poison by photosynthesis

Photography • Flowers/Plants • posted on Jun 07, 2014

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Description

This is a mountain laurel. Denise (MrsRatbag) identified this for me on another photo I posted a few days ago. When I looked it up, I discovered that it's a member of the blueberry family, but unlike edible blueberries, all parts of this plant are extremely toxic to humans & animals. Here's what Wikipedia had to say about it's toxicity: "Symptoms of toxicity begin to appear about 6 hours following ingestion. Symptoms include irregular or difficulty breathing, anorexia, repeated swallowing, profuse salivation, watering of the eyes and nose, cardiac distress, incoordination, depression, vomiting, frequent defecation, weakness, convulsions, paralysis, coma, and eventually death. Autopsy will show gastrointestinal irritation and hemorrhage." Pretty, but lethal...