The Firestick Plant
The Firestick plant is an attractive and easy to care for plant that is often seen in Southern California gardens as part of a low maintenance landscape. The Firestick Plant (Euphorbia tirucalli) goes by many different names including Pencil Cactus, Pencil Tree, Naked Lady and Milk Bush. Although these plants may appear to be a unique and interesting addition to your garden, they contain a latex sap that can be highly toxic to people and animals. Contact with the sap from these plants can cause allergic reaction to the skin, eyes, nose and bodily systems (if ingested). The sap can remain on skin, gloves or clothing for up to several days causing irritation or injury even after the initial contact with the plant has occurred. If a stick is cut or broken the Firestick plant can project its sap outward sticking to the person or animal that made the contact. Unfortunately, there is no safe part of this plant; any handling (intention or not) can cause the sap which contains a toxin know as diterpene esters to trigger an allergic reaction in people and animals.
What Should You Do If This Plant Is in Your Garden?
The best way to protect yourself against the negative effects of the Firestick Plant is to simply not have this plant in your yard. As your property management agency Golden Key Properties takes every opportunity to minimize risk to our owners, tenants and vendors as much as possible. Because the firestick plant posses such a liability to the property owner, we are having these plants removed if we find them on a property. If you know you have this plant in your rental property yard, and it has not yet been removed, please reach out to your property manager so that we may get it safely removed.
As unique and beautiful as these plants are, they are simply not worth the risk they pose. There are many other options to fill your landscape that are both attractive and low maintenance. Please let us know if you would like assistance in choosing replacement plants!
Resources for this blog article: https://succulentalley.com/firestick-plant-toxic/ & https://plantcaretoday.com/firestick-plant-toxic.html
