12 Weirdly Poisonous Houseplants

Part of the problem when you’re looking for a pop of color in your apartment is that those colors, in nature, are usually a warning. The oleander plant is a lot prettier than what happens if you ingest it, which is basically winning symptoms bingo: irregular heartbeat, diarrhea, vomiting, dizziness, headache and even death.

Such a dainty little plant, with a dainty little name: the daffodil. Once it gets on your insides, though, it’s suddenly a whole lot less adorable. Munch a daffodil or its bulb, and you’re in for three hours of vomiting and abdominal pain.

We might think of poison ivy as the sole bad seed of the ivy bunch, but it’s not alone in creating serious discomfort. English Ivy can cause rashes even on touch, and if you manage to eat some, you can experience throat swelling leading to shortness of breath.

This is just a delightful little name, but one you’ll never enjoy again if you, a child or a pet happens to accidentally eat some. It causes the usual spread of diarrhea, vomiting, et al, but one uniquely awful effect: blisters on the inside of the mouth.

Lilies in general are deceptively poisonous, but the Calla lily in particular is capable of making your next few hours or days highly unpleasant. In addition to swelling, burning, and again, blisters in the mouth, it can even cause pain and burning in the eyes that can lead to corneal damage.

Not only are azaleas poisonous, they’ve been used as literal poison. Nectar from azalea plants was used to make “mad honey” that, the legend goes, Turkey poisoned Roman soldiers with. The “mad” part of the name is due to the fact that it causes confusion, as well as extremely low blood pressure and heart rate, two numbers you don’t want to be “extremely” anything.

If you’re, well, stupid enough to eat some Dumb Cane, you’ll be rightly rewarded for your error. One specific, worrying symptom that Dumb Cane is known for is its ability to cause respiratory distress. 

This is the Sago Palm, or as I’d like to suggest it be called from now on, “The Devil’s Pineapple.” It’s highly poisonous, causing serious gastrointestinal distress for both humans and animals — especially its nuts, which, in a cruel twist of fate, apparently taste pretty good to pets. There’s an over 50 percent fatality rate for pets that ingest it.

Pothos is a plant that grows in a drooping fashion that just begs a toddler to try a bite, which will not go well for the tot in question. Ingesting parts of the Pothos plant will cause your mouth, tongue and lips to swell, make it hard to swallow, and you're probably in for some puking to boot.

At this point, we’re kind of familiar with the classics of houseplant poisoning, and the philodendron is playing the hits. Burning and swelling in the mouth, diarrhea, nausea, burning of the eyes, and once again, say it with me: mouth blisters.

The ZZ Plant is an extremely popular houseplant because your thumb only needs the barest tinge of green to keep it alive. Just keep that same thumb away from the plant itself, since touching it can cause irritation, and if you rub your eyes afterwards? Even worse.

If you like to hang mistletoe around Christmas, remember to kiss the person, not the plant. Mistletoe can cause some highly unpleasant holidays if eaten, inducing diarrhea and vomiting. It’s sometimes referenced as fatally poisonous, but that case is probably due to confusion with European mistletoe.