Re: [aroid-l] Dieffenbachia and skin rash

From: Betsy Feuerstein <ecuador at midsouth.rr.com> on 2004.06.01 at 03:24:08(11543) Speaking as one who has problems with both, yes, one can get a nasty difficult to heal rash from both philodendron and less so fromDieffenbachia. I can not work in my greenhouse cutting up philos without have what looks like poison ivy appear within 24 hours. It takes weeks or months to get such to go away. I have made trips to the dermatologist with such welts in February when no self respeciting poison ivy would be with leaves only to have it diagnosed as poinson ivy. Right............ it was the sap from the philodendrons I had cut up. Dieffs got their bad rep when years ago I was potting up imported cuttings of such. Each one had sawdust mixed with sand in a piece of paper wrapped around the cut end and fastened with rubber bands. Each time I popped the paper off, small grains of sand would hit me. In time, I thought a thousand ants were crawling all over me. Not fun......... this did not last too long. In Asia I found cleaning some plants the thousand ant syndrome happened also. Good growing to all........ Betsy +More Peter Boyce wrote: Hi Derek Quite possible; I know someone locally that cannot approach Philodendron without itching and Dieffenbachia is a far nastier plant, chemically, than Philodendron. Pete ps did my mss comments arrive OK? . ----- Original Message ----- To: Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 10:47 AM Subject: Re: [aroid-l] Dieffenbachia and skin rash ----- Original Message ----- To: Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 9:29 AM Subject: [aroid-l] Dieffenbachia and skin rash I have had a question about the possibility of a 2-year old child getting a skin rash that has lasted three weeks from walking barefoot over carpet on which a large dieffenbachia plant in a pot had sat for some years. The carpet was steam cleaned a few weeks before the rash began (I leap to the defense of the plant and blame the cleaner!) I can't imagine enough sap dropping to the carpet and surviving steam cleaning so as to present raphides to the child ... Any comments, please. derek [ Scanned by JARING E-Mail Virus Scanner ( http://www.jaring.my ) ] [ Scanned by JARING E-Mail Virus Scanner ( http://www.jaring.my ) ]

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