Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (Brunfelsia) Plant

[corvus]

Heads up for anyone not aware of this plant. I recently had two of my dogs with coughing and sneezing fits and both of them eventually had their first ever seizures within 2 weeks of each other. One is an 8 month old pup and the other a 7 year old dog, not remotely related. Hospitalisation, much anxiety, race against time figuring out what the heck is going on. The plants have been in my yard since we moved in 8.5 years ago, but the dogs have always ignored them. This year, they fruited, which they apparently do not typically do in Sydney. Perhaps the weather was favourable for them or something. Whatever the case, two of the dogs seem to enjoy the taste of the berries and actively go looking for them. It can kill dogs, so just be aware that it may suddenly fruit where it never has before. Both my guys made a full recovery and are back to normal. We spent most of the weekend pulling all the plants out of the garden, but with fruit all through the garden beds, it'll be a while before the dogs are allowed to use the yard much.

https://ausemergencyvet.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/brunfelsia-pretty-but-deadly/

One of my pup's milder coughing fits. The coughs gave way to violent sneezing fits several hours before she seized.

[persephone]

Thanks for that - have shared the info. Glad your guys are OK !!

[Taliecat]

Oh wow! I'm glad your pups are ok.

I've got a huge one of these in our yard, and it's the only shrub Dozer doesn't tear branches off.. I think I'll be having a chat with OH tomorrow about fencing it off, as I don't think the landlords would be very happy if we removed it.

[Kirislin]

I've heard of this plant and that it's poisonous to animals, although I don't know what it looks like. If it grew here my dogs particularly Tag and Puck, would definitely eat it.

[gillybob]

It has flowers that change colour from white to purple. Someone on here will be able to put a pic up.

The colour change is why it has its name.

[Papillon Kisses]

So glad your dogs are ok. How scary!

[Loving my Oldies]

How frightening, Corvus. So relieved that the outcome was okay.

The plant is popular because it is always in flower with a wide range of colour as gillybob says and can be toxic to dogs.

Take care, people.

Ed for auto correct

Edited June 29, 2016 by Dame Danny's Darling

[corvus]

Here is a photo from the web of the fruit. The fruit smell quite nice, kind of vaguely like cocoa. They have several brown seeds inside and some white flesh. The plants are unremarkable when not flowering. Mine flowered in spring/summer, so it's been ages. I didn't make the connection between flowers back then and fruit 6 months or more later. I thought we had 2-3 plants, but the self-sow and also send up suckers. We ended up pulling out 9 parent plants and each one had at least 3 suckers or seedlings. Some of them were very well established (and about 4m tall!) and we couldn't get the root systems out, so had to poison.

[corvus]

Thank you all for your kind thoughts. The pup spent nearly 2 weeks on seizure watch while we waited to see if she might be epileptic before the other dog got sick with the same symptoms. As much as it was scary and I'm alarmed that if they'd eaten enough of them, they could have died, I am relieved that I probably do not have an epileptic pup, or an older dog with a brain tumour or something. Lots of things cause seizures, and you can spend a lot of money trying to get a diagnosis that you might never get. I showed a video of little Kestrel with her coughing and sneezing to the emergency vet at ARH when she was admitted, and the vet thought it was interesting, but not necessarily significant. Both dogs had pretty normal blood test results after the seizures. There was really nothing much to go on. I was just lucky to notice both dogs eating something that sounded unusually crunchy and managed to join the dots.

[melzawelza]

Yikes, that's scary. Thanks for letting us know. Glad they're all okay.

[Papillon Kisses]

I haven't dealt with that plant before, but you'll want to be careful of any remaining suckers or seed germinating and forming new plants. If it proves hard to destroy by hand removal and spray alone, you could try laying thick black plastic over the affected areas during the summer months, secured by bricks or whatnot (soil solarisation). It doesn't look very pretty, but the heat building up over time cooks and destroys any seed or plant material in the soil underneath.

[_PL_]

Thanks for the reminder! We've only had one encounter with this plant and it's such a common, benign looking decorative shrub you'd never guess! Glad your guys are ok. :)

One of our volunteers got this done last night as a card for FB. She hadn't heard of it either.

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