Look, Don’t Taste
Beautiful, and poisonous. Many plants defend themselves with chemicals that make animals, and people, sick. Enjoy these with your eyes: never taste a plant you don’t know.
Dumb Cane
Dieffenbachia seguine
Beautiful but dangerous: its sap holds needle-like crystals that make the mouth and throat swell painfully, which once left people unable to speak. Look, but never taste.
Variegated Oleander
करवीर फूल
Nerium oleander ‘Variegatum’
An oleander with cream-edged leaves and pink flowers. Every part of an oleander is highly poisonous, so look but never taste.
Variegated Japanese Spindle
Euonymus japonicus
A glossy hedge shrub with leaves edged in gold. Its colorful fruits are poisonous.
Azalea
Rhododendron sp.
Every part of an azalea is poisonous if eaten, even the nectar. It is a rhododendron, a relative of Nepal’s lali gurans, and spots on its upper petal guide bees to the nectar.
Chinese Taro
चाइनिज पिँडालु
Alocasia cucullata
It looks like the taro people cook, but it is a different plant, and eating it raw makes the mouth swell painfully. Its heart-shaped leaves end in a hooded tip.
More in Food and Medicine
The garden is alive and changes through the year. Some plants flower, fruit, or rest only in certain seasons, so what you see depends on when you visit.
See them for yourself
Every plant here grows on our campus in Bhaktapur. Walk the garden on your visit.
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