I am looking for an exhaustive list of the poisonous plants occurring in Indian subcontinent. If any body have a complete list of species, please provide me copy or to guide me to finding out the list from somewhere.
Thanks in advance
Poisonous property of any plant is due to the presence of toxic chemicals in their certain parts. These compounds are biosynthesized as a parts of the self defence mechanism of plants. Their concentration varies across the species. Some plants are entirely poisonous while in some plants their specific parts are toxic. Parts of even some edible fruits are considered toxic. For example seeds of apple (Malus domestica), leaves and seeds of cherry (Prunus cerasus), other Prunus species like peach (Prunus persica), plum (Prunus domestica), almond (Prunus dulcis), and apricot (Prunus armeniaca) are considered poisonous due to presence of a cyanogenic glycoside (amygdalin). A lot of information is available on this aspect which you can get through web search. Following thread may some information about poisonous plants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poisonous_plants
Pl. find a paper dealing with the poisonous plants of A & N Islands.
Awasti, A.K., 1990. An account of native poisonous plants of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and their utility in Medicine J. Econ. Taxon. Bot. 14: 541-546.
There is Book published by Botanical Survey of India entitled "Selected Poisonous Plants from the Tribal Areas of India" authored by Ratna Sen, D.C. Pal and K. Thothathri. I think if it is not out of print, you can order it online.
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