Corn Plant

I just read that the corn plant is poisonous to cats. I've had a corn plant for as long as I've had cats (10 years).

One of my cats, Ella, had intestinal lymphoma and I had to put her to sleep 2 years ago. I do remember she would chew the leaves occasionally, and I'd always "shoo" her away if I saw her doing it, not because I knew it was poisonous (I didn't!) but because it just seemed like the wrong thing for her to do! I would be devastated if her cancer developed from nibbling on the plant.

Has anyone had any experience with corn plants? Should I get rid of it? I have 2 cats (Ella's daughter, Scat, who's 10, and Tommy, who's 3).

Thanks!
Jami

Originally Posted by JamiDNYC

I would be devastated if her cancer developed from nibbling on the plant.

Click to expand...

I sort of doubt it was related. It's difficult to find exact toxicity levels of dracaenas and what is the toxin in them, likely because it's so low and some of them aren't toxic at all. With fragrans it seems to be one of the plants with a low level of toxicity that takes eating a lot of leaves to cause - and doing that much causes vomiting to begin with. I think you would have noticed that many leaves missing.

If you can safely move the plant to a cat free room, that solves the problem. You can also go to the hardware store and get hardware cloth (name for a type of wire mesh) and make a cage around it to keep cats out.

For what it's worth, I've always had dracaenas around cats in the past, including marginatas (which are thought to be more toxic?) without problems. Something about the plants' leaves just don't seem to attract cats like other plants do.

I'm sorry you lost Ella like you did, but please don't blame yourself for it.