The Deadly Laburnum.

Many of you will know this....All parts of the laburnum plant are poisonous. The black seeds inside the pods, which resemble pea pods, contain an alkaloid poison and can cause vomiting and convulsions. When I was 9 years old, I went with my playmates to buy a bag of chips at teatime which we ate on the way home. We passed by a laburnum tree and I picked and ate some pods which I thought were the same as the peas that I used to help my mother shell. I was  very ill which I remember vividly. I didn't connect being ill to the laburnum pods until years later when the local nursery school had to remove one of these trees from the children's playground. This tree, which looks so lovely, is in the garden of the doctor's surgery.