Native Plants

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Friday - September 26, 2008

From: Melbourne, FL
Region: Southeast
Topic: Trees
Title: Is the orchid tree (Bauhinia lunarioides) poisonous to dogs?
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

is the orchid tree (bauhinia) poisonous to dogs?

ANSWER:

Bauhinia lunarioides (Anacacho orchid plant) does not occur on any of the following toxic plant databases:

Poisonous Plants of North America

Cornell University Plants Poisonous to Livestock

Canadian Poisonous Plants Information System

Texas Toxic Plant Database

Nor does it appear on any of the "plants poisonous to dogs/pets" pages, such as:

ASPCA

Pawprints & Purrs, Inc.

PetEducation.com

Humane Society of the United States

Unfortunately, these 'pet' pages don't list the plants by their botanical names and thus, since common names for plants are quite variable, they are a little more difficult to search.

Since the orchid tree doesn't appear on any of these databases, it is unlikely that any parts of it are toxic to your dog—at least it wouldn't appear that it is fataly toxic. However, to be on the safe side, it probably would be a good idea to keep the seed pods off the ground and out of reach of your dog.