Death awaits in your garden

Many people love gardening, so they have a garden full of beautiful plants, but they usually don’t know that some of those plants can kill you if you dare to eat their flowers, fruits, leaves, stem or root. Some plants can intoxicate only by holding their flowers or leaves in hand.

Adults are out of danger (except in the cases of plants that can be used as drugs), but children have the habit of putting everything they find in the mouth and the beautiful colors of the plants can make them attractive, that’s why the gardens can offer a great risk to kids. Some parents don’t have any information about the plants that exist in their garden, so they cannot give advice to their kids to stay far from the poisonous plants,  which makes the problem worse.

Down below there's a list of dangerous plants that are frequently found in gardens, and they can lead to death if eaten. Actually, all of them can be found here in São Carlos, SP, Brazil.

The first ones of the list are my favorite ones, the belladona family, the plants of that family deserve respect. They don´t contain only one poisonous substance, but a cocktail of dangerous alcaloids, like scopolamin, hyosciamin, and atropine. Scopolamin is a hallucinogen hundred of times more powerfull than LSD!, and atropine  can stop the muscles of vital organs and cause severe brain damage, hypertermia and dehydratation, it’s not necessary to say that those substances are dangerous.

Due to the hallucinogenic effect of those plants, they are used as drugs, in a great amount of cases bringing permanent brain damage to the user.

All the parts off the plants of that family are toxic, but the bigger concentration of poison is found in the berries or seeds. Here we go with the list of the deadly belladona family:

Scientific name:Atropa belladona.  

English common name:Deadly nightshade.

Portuguese common name: Beladona.

The English name of this plant says everything about it. Although atropine can be used as medicine in low concentrations, in higher concentrations it’s very dangerous, and the other alcaloids of the plant are equally dangerous. The poisons are absorbed by the skin, and because of this you can be poisoned if you hold the plant a long time. The berries are sweet, then if a child eat one, it will like and eat a lot of them, unfortunately five berries is sufficient to send a people to the graveyard.

A curious fact about this plant is that it is hazardous to humans, but it’s harmless to some animals like rabbits, because of that some people in ancient Europe died by eating rabbits contamined with beladona poisons.

Scientific name: Datura sp(inoxia, metel,stramonium).

English common name: Jimson weed, devil's apple, devil's trumpet.

Portuguese common  name:Cartucheira, estramônio.

This plant got famous in the 60's decade because of the books of Carlos

Castaneda, in which he described the use of this plant in xamanic rituals. After that, many people tried to use datura as a drug, but even  drug users that had the habit of taking heavy hallucinogens like mushrooms or LSD described the datura experience as traumatic scary and  very "real". If the person don´t die because of the deadly substances of the plant, the hallucinogen effect can persist for days, with high possibility of causing permanent brain damage.

There's an Indian tribe in North America who uses a drink prepared with datura in their rite of passage. This drink is called wysoccan, and the objective of drinking it is forget about the child life to ingress in the adult life, but the brain effect is very strong, making some of them to forget about their identity or even how to speak!

Scientific name:Brugmansia suavelleons.

English common name:Angel's trumpet.

Portuguese common name: Trombeta.

This one is the "cousin" of datura, and the last member of beladona family. The effects of the plants in body are almost the same. Datura is called devil's trumpet because the flowers are erect, growing from the " depts of hell", and the brugmansia is called angel's trumpet because the flowers are pendent, growing from the "upper sky". The flowers of this plant can be pink, yellow or white; all of them are equally poisonous.

The next plants don't have cool curiosity about them like the beladona family, but are very dangerous to.    

 

Scientific name:Ricinus comunnis.

English common name:Castor Beans.

Portuguese common name: Mamona.

This one is not cultivated in gardens, but grows easily in almost every place, because of this is comonly found in gardens. It contains a toxic substance called ricine, which cause nausea, inner bleeding (homorrhage), and diarrhea, and can lead to death due to renal and circulatory failure.

All the parts of the plant contains ricine in a small concentration, but the fruits and the seed have a big concentration of the substance, three seeds are sufficient to kill a people.

When he was a kid, my uncle ate half of a seed of this plant, and almost died.

Scientific name: Dieffenbachia seguine.

English common name: Dumb-cane.

Portuguese common name: Comigo ninguém pode.

The leaves of this plant contains the calcium oxalate, a substance that causes severe inflammation in the throat, which blocks the breathing, causing death in the worst cases.

Scientific name: Jatropha curcas.

English common name:---------.

Portuguese common name:Pinhão Bravo.

This one is really dangerous, the leaves and the fruits of this plant contains curcin, a substance that causes nausea, diarrhea and cardiac arrhythmia, complications can lead to  cardiac stop. The poison of this plant is used by some Indian tribes to make their arrows more deadly.

Scientific name:Thevetia peruviana.

English commmon name:-----------.

Portuguese common name:Chapéu de napoleão.

All the parts of this plant are toxic, but almost all of poisoning cases are caused by the fruits, when they are confused with edible nuts, principally by children. The plant have a mix of toxins that affects the heart, and can cause death by cardiac stop. This one is very common in São Carlos; if you all readers see the fruits of this small tree, don't try to eat them.

I hope this post contributes to help people protect themselves and specially their children.

by Daniel Yoshio Akamatsu

Barone English's student

level 3
Material Engineering student at UFSCar


Note: This text is result of Barone English’s methodology. Different writing techniques are developed every unit. Besides that, the students make presentations about the same theme, based on their researches.

VOCABULARY:

(to) dare (verb): if you dare to do something, you are not afraid to do it, even though it may be dangerous or shocking or may cause trouble for you;

to await (verb): if something awaits you, it will happen to you: Well, I wonder what surprises await us today;

hazardous (adjective): dangerous, especially to people’s health or safety;

edible (adjective): food that is edible is safe or good enough to eat.

Introduction to a Amanda's post entitled "A Bottle Son"

The post, below to this one, is a student’s writing homework. It’s amazing to see so good texts written by students. In this case, the students did a reading comprehension activity based on the autobiographical text “My time in a bottle” by Mickey Mantle.

Read the full autobiographical text written by Mickey Charles Mantle on http://sportsillustrated.ca/vault/article/magazine/MAG1005099/3/index.htm

On this article, he describes his life of self-destructive behavior abusing of alcohol for 42 years.  And talk about his recovery as an example of overcoming.

Then, the students were supposed to write an autobiographical narrative about a problem that they had to deal and how they overcome it. At Barone English, on every unit students are taught different writing techniques and styles. Instead of writing about herself, Amanda created a character, Mickey Mantle’s son, and used him as the narrator of his own fictional autobiography.  The result is not only an autobiographical text but a literary one. 

Background information about Mickey Mantle

Mickey Mantle

Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995) was an American professional baseball player. He played 18 years for the New York Yankees as an outfielder and first baseman. He won 3 American League MVP titles and played in 16 All-Star games. Unhappily, Mickey Mantle ruined his career because of his addiction to alcohol.   

Vocabulary

outfield players:  the players positioned at a distance from both the pitcher and the catcher with the aim of catching or stopping the ball. They can be right/left/center fielders. 

Congratulations Amanda!

Enjoy Amanda's text. 
It's worth reading it!

introduction  by Vivian Barone                             

A Bottle Son

Somebody told me one day that “the children’s problems are children of parent’s problems”; I’ve been thinking about that sentence for many days, and it took me some time to accept the idea.

Alcohol abuse  

I’m Mickey Mantle’s son, Mickey Jr., I say “son” because my mother taught me to consider him like a father. But, sincerely, for me, he’s an unknown person. I don’t have remembrance of Mickey’s Mantle in my life; when I close my eyes and try to feel him hugging me, or saying something hard (rebuking) to correct me, like a common father, I can’t remember him, and it frustrated me for  long years. I just remember the smelling of his addiction, every night.

In my childhood, I spent many hours studying about my grandfather’s life, and what he might have done to my father to make him a problematic person. But I didn’t find anything. On the contrary, I thought if my father could have done the same, coaching me, like my grandfather did to him, I could make my dream to come true: being a baseball athlete.

But, when I read his text “My time in a bottle” and his letter to my grandfather, I understood part of his feelings, and I found hope and good things in that strange man called “my father”. I could have been a wonderful athlete, a better person, I know, I could be happier and satisfied in “my world” if Mickey Mantle’s had been in my life like a true father. 

But I don’t blame him, because he could be a better person if my grandfather had been better too. I don’t blame my grandpa, too. So, whose is the fault? Adam and Eve? 

I prefer to think that we always tried to be or do “OUR BEST”, but “try” is different to “achieve”. So, I accepted my father like he is. I know all his mistakes, I hate them at all, but it isn’t a reason to make me no to love him and learn with his experiences. So I’m gonna say it to him, tonight: “father, I love you”.

by Amanda Laíza dos Reis Mota

Barone English's student

level 5
Medicine student at UFSCar


Note: This text is result of Barone English’s methodology. Different writing techniques are developed every unit. Besides that, the students make presentations about the same theme, based on their researches.

New video game: Garbage Spreader

Louie the Litterbug

The new computer game launched this year is called Garbage Spreader. In the game, you need to chase Louie the Litterbug. He is a garbage spreader, an outlaw and likes to throw garbage out. Your mission is to capture him and take all his garbage. First of all, you’ll need to find him, it isn’t hard, because everywhere he walks he leaves garbage on the floor.
Secondly, you have to capture and take him to the police station; additionally you need to separate recyclable waste at recycling station. Finally, your job will be ready.

Above all, the principal message in this game is to teach people about the importance of preserving the enviroment and the consequences of littering (throwing garbage out on public places). 

In the game you can see it in a funny way, but on the real life it isn’t. During the game, you can see how the town changes when you pick up the garbage from the floor and put it on a garbage can. Every dirt you pick up, in the same place a flower is born and you win points. In the real life is the same way, you don’t win points, but responsibility, and it isn’t born a flower too, but you can plant it when you want.

You can find this game for downloading  on the internet. Your children will like it, and all the family can play. The most important thing is to understand the message in this game, not just to play it. Games that teach something to people are on the top nowadays, and to play without a message behind the game is to lose your time, we already use the internet without any content checking the facebook or twittering, for example, so when you have a game with a good message it is a single opportunity to change this behavior  and to distress learning something.  

Finally, let’s pay attention at the games, if they are affecting you. The research shows us that children who play violent games (like GTA or War craft)  are more aggressive than the others that don’t play them. The games have a big power, and everyone has to think about the games that children are playing and if they're muddling their raising. We don’t need to stop playing the games, but to try to choose them better !

Vocabulary:

litter: (noun) things such as pieces of paper that people have dropped on the ground in a public place, making it messy, e.g.: The park and river are full of litter.

litterbug: someone who drops litter in public places

muddle-headed (adj) resulting from a lack of clear thought, e.g.: muddle-headed plans

muddle (noun) (objects) mess

muddle (verb) (objects) mix up, jumble

muddle (verb) (ideas) confuse, mix up

by Wagner Barros
Barone English's student
level 2

References:

This game was inspired on the cartoon Woody Woodpecker Show - Secret Agent Woody Woodpecker (English) (released in 1967 in the USA). On this cartoon Woody Woodpecker has to arrest  Louie the Litterbug (Luiz o Espalha Lixo)

Woody Woodpecker Show - Secret Agent Woody Woodpecker (Portuguese)

Note: This text is result of Barone English’s methodology. Different writing techniques are developed every unit. Besides that, the students make presentations about the same theme, based on their researches.