Are sago palms poisonous to pets?

July 5, 7:02 PMPittsburgh Gardening Scene ExaminerRose Field

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Emails warning about poisonous plants come to the inbox regularly and, like everything on the Internet, can't always be trusted. A new message about the sago palm is making the rounds and, for once, this appears to be an email that holds correct and valuable information to safeguard your children and pets. Snopes.com, the website known and trusted as the source for digging out the real story, reprinted the information and investigated.

The email reports that some of the home improvement stores recently featured  beautiful sago palms as houseplants. In warm climates, they're commonly used in outdoor landscaping. The sago palm (Cycas revoluta) is not actually a palm, it's a cycad, part of one of the world's oldest plant families. Fans of dinosaur movies will recognize it as an often utilized background prop. The sago palm is a tempting houseplant because it's not only striking in appearance, but easy to grow.

Sadly, every part of the sago palm is poisonous, and it is quite toxic, not a mild nuisance like some of the other plants with more widely known bad reputations. Snopes.com links to the ASPCA warning and notes that the ASPCA estimates a fatality rate of 50%-75% among pets who ate parts of the plant.

Poisonous plants are all around us, both growing in the wild locally and sold as houseplants. Warnings about them seem to abound with incorrect information and therefore foster a “cry wolf” climate. Poinsettia is probably the most maligned plant of all. Interestingly, Pittsburgh's Childrens Hospital is cited on Medicinenet.com as the source of a study showing that the holiday flower suffers from an undeserved bad reputation. The Medicinenet.com article states, “Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburg (sic) Poison Center conducted a review of 22,793 reported cases of poinsettia exposures, the majority (93%) of which occurred in children, and found that 92% of those exposed did not develop any symptoms at all.”

Medicinenet goes on to add, “Ninety-six per cent of those exposed were not even treated in a health care facility. Furthermore, no deaths resulting from poinsettia ingestion have ever been documented.” It's good to see Pittsburgh's Childrens Hospital recognized for it's expertise, but these folks need to spell Pittsburgh right and give us back our "h"!

For more information on keeping your pets healthy read Pittsburgh Animal Health Examiner Alexis Jenny's articles.