Purrchance To Dream

After I finished yesterday's post about 17 Toxic Plants, I began to think there were two that were really missing from the ASPCA list: Dieffenbachia, also known as Dumb Cane, and Dracaena, also known as Lucky Bamboo.
Dieffenbachia, pictured above,  is a very common houseplant, because it can tolerate low-light situations and general neglect, and it's common name "Dumb Cane" comes from the fact that chewing on the leaves can produce numbness of the mouth, even blistering, in humans. The leaves of this plant contain needle-like calcium oxalate crystal. For pets, the effect can be lethal.
To learn more, you can read the Wikipedia article on diffenbachia, which focuses on its toxicity.

The second plant, Dracaena, is also sold as a house plant, but in the past few years, has been mainly marketed as "Lucky Bamboo" - pictured below.  Again, this is a tropical plant that can tolerate the low-light conditions found in most homes, and the stems of this plant can be twisted into different shapes, even braided, and will live for a long time rooted in water.  This is not a bamboo plant, it is more closely related to dieffenbacia.  Again, its leaves contain the needle-like calcium oxalate crystals, and can be very toxic to pets.  The only 'lucky' thing about this plant is that someone discovered the broken stems easily root in water, vaguely resemble bamboo, can be mass-marketed inexpensively, and it has become a profitable industry - lucky for someone else, not for your pets!

Derby would like to remind everyone that aloe vera plants can also be hazardous to cats.  While probably not deadly, they are on the ASPCA's toxic plant list, and can cause gastrointestinal problems in felines chewing the fleshy leaves.