ALDER - Potential Toxicity?

[M.D. Vaden]

I have a question about TRUE alder: "Alnus"

Does anybody, have any book or resource that mentions any toxicity? Especially in the essence of "super laxative" ??

A lady emailed me about my safe / toxic woods for pet birds page, mentioning that her Avian Vet said it's toxic and contains:

Cascara sagrada

Every online source I found, states that ONLY Cascara buckthorn has that substance, and that basically, cascara sagrada = Cascara Buckthorn.

Cascara buckthorn has a COMMON NAME of "Buckthorn Alder".

To the best of my study, this looks like a common name misunderstanding.

If true alder has another toxin or laxative, it can't be cascara sagrada, but I wondered if there might be another toxin.

My Bird Page is:

http://www.mdvaden.com/bird_page.shtml

I added a paragraph on Alder and Cascara on the lower 1/3 of the page. It stands-out, because I colored quite a bit of text.

There is a strong correlation between Cascara and our word "$hit" which is included in the paragraphs - a small language lesson too.

Anyway, if anybody has any native plants or poisonous plant books, let me know if ALDER / ALNUS is mentioned. I've always been under the impression that it's a safe tree.

Thanks.

 

[treeseer]

Very cool page, Mario.

My toxic references say nothing aobut Alnus.

I'm working on another branch of ornitho-arboriculture--pressing pruned branches into crotches to make nest foundations. I started to feel guilty about removing habitat when pruning so I had to give some back. Birds are vital associates outdoors, and their singing brightens up the environment indoors and out.

 

[Sprig]

Hm, am wondering what type of alders you are refering to. The alders we have here that are indiginous to the Pacific NW as far as I know are not toxic, in fact they are used for smoking meats and a few people tap them for the sap for sugar and syrup (though unlike maples I believe it takes 4x the amount) and my kid's hamster site says they are ok for 'chewing wood' when dry, and I burn a lot of it too. So I guess I am asking if maybe there is another species being called 'alder' that is being cited here, or is it a varied species according to location, dunno. Just wonderin'

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Hm, am wondering what type of alders you are refering to. The alders we have here that are indiginous to the Pacific NW as far as I know are not toxic, in fact they are used for smoking meats and a few people tap them for the sap for sugar and syrup (though unlike maples I believe it takes 4x the amount) and my kid's hamster site says they are ok for 'chewing wood' when dry, and I burn a lot of it too. So I guess I am asking if maybe there is another species being called 'alder' that is being cited here, or is it a varied species according to location, dunno. Just wonderin'

Read the Alder paragraphs on the page I included the link for.

It's down the page, with some bold letter red text to make the ALDER part stand-out.

I included a comment, that I found a USDA Forest Service page mentioning "Toxicity: Can cause dermatitus", as well as an Avian Vet's note about skin irritation.

The paragraphs mention at least 3 tree species surrounding this question.

 

[Sprig]

Read the Alder paragraphs on the page I included the link for.

It's down the page, with some bold letter red text to make the ALDER part stand-out.

I included a comment, that I found a USDA Forest Service page mentioning "Toxicity: Can cause dermatitus", as well as an Avian Vet's note about skin irritation.

The paragraphs mention at least 3 tree species surrounding this question.

My bad for not doing my reading, thankyou for pointing that out! The list of toxic trees was very helpful to me and the kid's rodent Good refference!



Serge

 

[M.D. Vaden]

My bad for not doing my reading, thankyou for pointing that out! The list of toxic trees was very helpful to me and the kid's rodent Good refference!



Serge

My web stats show that I'm recieving inbound links from rodent chat forums and mammal forums too.

Rats.
Chinchillas
Sugar Gliders

And then, a hoard of pet bird websites like Parrot chat forums.

 

[Big Sach]

I'm from Pacific NorthWest as well. I know that the common Alder tree here, sometimes called the "weed" tree does cause alot of people grief from seasonal allergies in the Springtime. Also I've heard some peoples skin is sensitve to it and when burned the smoke causes irritation to a small percentage. These same people can't eat foods smoked with alder, like salmon etc.