If you have a cat and you have seen your cat eat any part of a daylily may I please ask you to answer a few questions at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/...
It is important that as many people as is possible provide information. No personal questions are asked. I will post the results here when the information has been analyzed.
Thank you,
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Edited to add the results....
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The Results
There were 12 responses. That is good, but I will be posting similar survey requests at other daylily sites because I will need more responses to be convincing.
All identified plant B as the one their cat ate. Eleven identified that plant as a daylily and one identified it as not a daylily.
The cats ate seedling leaves (9), mature leaves (8), flower buds (1), flower parts (3) and even the fibrous roots (1).
Two of the cats vomited but the other 10 were completely unaffected.
None of the cats needed treatment.
What the ASPCA did and found:
The ASPCA veterinarians published an article with the title "A Retrospective Study of Daylily Toxicosis in Cats" . It was based on 22 reports in their database of cats suspected or known to have eaten daylilies. Of those 22 cats seventeen cats vomited (had upset digestive symptoms). Eight of the cats showed more serious problems. Of those showing more serious problems seven developed kidney (renal) failure. Of those seven it was known that five died even though treated.
The problem:
The ASPCA report is basically the opposite of what daylily enthusiasts have observed happen to their cats when they have eaten daylilies.
Lilium, true lilies such as the Easter lily are known to be poisonous to cats and cause kidney failure.
Some people call Lilium, lilies and some call them day lily (or daylily).
Some people call Hemerocallis (true daylilies) daylilies and some call them lilies.
Some garden plant outlets sell daylilies as 'bulbs'.
It is unknown how the ASPCA identified that the cats which they classified as having eaten daylilies actually had eaten Hemerocallis. If they simply asked the cat owner there may well have been misidentifications in which some cats which ate Lilium were identified as having eaten daylilies. Those could have been the cats that developed severe symptoms and died.
The other side of the problem:
Hemerocallis (daylilies) are known to contain a poison. The poison has been identified and it has been found in the roots. Hemerocallis roots have poisoned and killed some people in Asia.
Many (most) chemicals are poisons. It is the amount eaten (the dose) that is used to decide how poisonous a substance is. Different individual plants can contain different amounts of their chemicals, including having none at certain times or when grown in certain locations or under certain conditions. The result is that daylily roots have been used medicinally in Asia for a long time with very few cases of human poisonings.
It is easy to understand why the ASPCA takes the cautious approach and labels Hemerocallis as poisonous to cats. Cats actually correctly identified as having eaten Hemerocallis may be aggressively treated by vets even if they show no symptoms. Their concern is that if not treated then, the cat may later show symptoms and by that time it is too late.
Modern taxonomy does not place Hemerocallis in the same plant family as Lilium (the family Liliaceae) it does not even place them in the same plant order (the order Liliales), but that is very recent and such changes can take a very long time before they are generally accepted as correct.
I will post requests for daylily growers to complete a survey at three other locations. Hopefully I will be able to collect at least 40 completed surveys in total, which would be about double the number analyzed by the ASPCA. That may help convince them to try some properly controlled feeding tests of their own (as long as all the surveys do indicate that eating daylilies never poisons cats).
A final request, if you completed the survey and you have seen more than one cat eat daylilies, could you please post in this thread how many cats you have seen eating daylilies. Thank you.
Maurice
