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Pothos: toxicity, first aid and care

Pothos (Epipremnum aureum): toxic for cats, toxic for dogs, irritant for small children. The toxic principle, the signs, what to do, and how to grow it.

Cats: ToxicDogs: ToxicChildren: Irritant

Epipremnum aureumbotanical name

Araceaefamily

House plantwhere you meet it

Toxicrisk band

Also sold as: Devil's ivy, golden pothos, money plant, scindapsus.

This is a reference table, not a diagnosis and not veterinary or medical advice. It cannot tell you how much of a plant matters for a particular child or a particular animal — that depends on body weight, on the part eaten and on how long ago. If a person or an animal has eaten part of a plant, phone the poison information centre or a clinician; do not wait for symptoms, and do not make anyone vomit unless you are told to.

What is in it

Toxic principle: Insoluble calcium oxalate raphides — Calcium oxalate needles.

Standard aroid chemistry — oxalate needles in leaf and stem, immediate oral pain on chewing. What makes pothos the plant cats actually get into is not potency but position: it trails, so the leaves hang at exactly the height of a bored cat, and they move in a draught.

What it looks like when it goes wrong

Drooling, mouth-pawing, head-shaking, vomiting in a bigger mouthful. Signs start within minutes and usually settle within a few hours.

What to do

Rinse the mouth, offer something cold and milky, and watch for swelling or difficulty swallowing. Phone a veterinary clinic if either appears or if the animal is still drooling heavily after an hour. Hanging the plant high does not solve it — cats climb; a shelf a cat cannot land on does.

Poison information centres in the Nordic and Baltic region
Country	Poison information centre	Number	Hours
Estonia	Mürgistusteabekeskus (Health Board)	16662	Round the clock; 112 for an emergency
Finland	Myrkytystietokeskus (HUS)	0800 147 111	Free, round the clock
Latvia	Saindēšanās un zāļu informācijas centrs	67042473	Round the clock
Sweden	Giftinformationscentralen	010-456 67 00	Non-urgent advice; 112 in an emergency
Norway	Giftinformasjonen	22 59 13 00	Round the clock
Denmark	Giftlinjen (Bispebjerg Hospital)	82 12 12 12	Round the clock

Anywhere in the European Union, 112 reaches emergency services and can put you through. Lithuania's poison information bureau (Apsinuodijimų kontrolės ir informacijos biuras) publishes its own round-the-clock line; if you do not have it to hand, use 112. For an animal, your own veterinary clinic or its out-of-hours service is the first call — human poison centres do not advise on animals in every country.

How to grow it

Growing conditions for Pothos
Condition	What it wants
Light	Anything from bright indirect to a genuinely dim hallway
Water	Let it dry out properly between waterings; it hates soggy roots
Temperature	15-29 °C — it tolerates a cool room better than most aroids

The most tolerant house plant in general circulation: it survives low light, missed watering and cold windowsills, and roots from any cutting with a node, in plain water, in about two weeks. Yellow lower leaves almost always mean too much water rather than too little. Cut it back hard when it goes leggy — it reshoots from the cut.

What it gets confused with

The variegation is not a fixed variety trait: golden and marbled pothos revert to plain green in low light, and cutting back to a variegated node is how you get it back. Note also that "money plant" means pothos in some countries and jade plant in others, which matters because the two have different problems.

A plant that is not on the toxic lists

If you are deciding what to keep in a home with a cat, a dog or a small child, this one fills a similar role and is not flagged by the veterinary services.

Spider plant

Bright indirect light; it tolerates much less. Keep lightly moist in summer, drier in winter.

Not on the veterinary toxic lists