Watch out - danger lurks in the garden

Just when I think I am a "gardening kung fu master" and know everything, Mother Nature has a way of jumping up and teaching me a good lesson. She did just that this past week.

I was bouncing right along, enjoying my garden and cutting a nice bouquet to give to a friend. I stuffed the bouquet full of wonderful flowers, including some euphorbia palustris or "spurge." That was at 8:30 a.m. By 10:30 a.m., I was out in the garden deadheading roses when I began to feel immense pain in my right eye.

I ignored it at first, but then I realized that it needed some eye drops or something. So, I continually doused it in eye drops. The pain was terrible, and I could no longer work in the garden. My eye was screaming in pain.

I called Bill at work and asked him to come home and take me to the eye doctor.

By the time I got to Dr. Jakubchak, I was ready to be put out of my misery. He looked at my eye and said it looked like it had gotten a chemical burn.

Now, I knew that I had been nowhere near any chemicals. I told him what I had been doing (cutting flowers) and mentioned that the euphorbia "spurge" had a milky white sap that was a skin irritant, but that it had never bothered me. I had apparently gotten the milky sap in my eye.

Dr. J had a hard time believing this. He sent me home after spending a lot of time washing my eye and medicating it.

When I returned the next day, I brought along a sample cutting of the plant. Dr. J took it to a lab friend of his and they tested it and did some research. They were amazed to find that there were many cases of eye injury when people's eyes were exposed to the sap. There were even cases of permanent blindness when it went untreated.

My eye was irrigated and treated with a liquid antibiotic. Dr. J put a "band aid" contact lens on the injured eye for several days.

My eye is fine now, but as Dr. Jakubchak said, I was very, very lucky. The offending plant grows along the driveway edge and reseeds readily. I love this plant, but I have decided to remove it, as I have small grandchildren who play here. All it would take is one incident like mine, and I now realize how horrible it would be for anyone to get the sap juice in an eye.

How I will remove it is another subject. I can assure you I will wear gloves and a long-sleeved shirt, and I will use a garbage bag to put the plant in. Then I will burn it. In the end, safe practices must be followed.

Euphorbia is a large family of plants that are related to succulents. The other euphorbia plants, such as wulfenii and characius, are not as offending and dangerous as the palustris.

The common plant called "Crown of Thorns" or euphorbia milii also has the offending white sap. It is often said that Christ wore a crown made from the stems of this plant at the time of his crucifixion.

Part of the euphorbia family of plants was discovered by a North African king, Juba II. Juba named the family of plants after his physician, Euphorbus.

Other dangerous plants include castor bean, whose berries are poisonous if swallowed, and poinsettias, which also emit a harmful, milky sap. Both plants are also members of the euphorbia family.

In conclusion, I realize that as experienced as I am, I know nothing. As a gardener, I am constantly learning about new things and how they work in conjunction with Mother Nature.

This lesson was rather dangerous and very painful. But thanks to Dr. Jakubchak, my eye is fine. When you go out to garden, be careful. Each day, a new lesson is learned.

Reach Cobb, a Master Gardener, at 574-8493 or lindacobb@charter.net.