What a corncockle up. In a classic summer scare story, the Telegraph has accused the BBC of spreading poison across the land after Countryfile offered viewers free packets of wild flower seeds via the Grow Wild project run by Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.
These included seeds of the corncockle, a rare wild flower that is pretty, and also poisonous. You’ll find claims on the internet that it causes severe stomach pain, vomiting and even death. In Royal Wootton Bassett, the town council has hurriedly fenced off and cut corncockle flowers planted by local Brownies in a park after a resident reported the terrifying spectre of a tiny purple flower.
This kerfuffle is a huge overreaction, given that many of our most popular garden plants are poisonous, including daffodils, laurel, ivy, yew, hellebores, lupins and particularly foxgloves. In fact, we have lived alongside poisonous plants for centuries, and many toxic species are particularly useful to medicine and are used in life-saving drugs. Even parts of plants we eat, such as potatoes, are toxic.
“It’s like the Jerry Maguire show-me-the-money test – for me, it’s show me the bodies,” says John Robertson, author of a guide to poisonous plants memorably called Is That Cat Dead? “If you’re going to say a plant is really dangerous, show me the dead people.”
According to Robertson, there are “absolutely no records” of the corncockle – also known as “bastard nigella” – doing anyone any serious harm. “It is only poisonous if you eat it and there’s absolutely nothing about the corncockle that’s going to encourage you to eat it.”
Read More Here: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2014/aug/26/corncockle-countryfile-bbc-packets-seeds-poisonous
