Something you should always think about before buying a plant, or at least choosing where the plant will live in your house, is if it’s toxic to your pets.
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Especially with the growing interest in having a lot of plants in your home, this can actually be dangerous to cats if you don’t know what you’re bringing into your home!
So are peace lilies toxic to cats? The short answer is YES they are toxic to cats. They are not as dangerous to cats as other plants are, but this plant can cause mouth and digestive problems.
Symptoms of Toxicity
The symptoms of a cat getting poisoned by a peace lily is burning mouth/lips and having a hard time swallowing. The other two ways to tell if your cat has been poisoned by a peace lily is if they are drooling excessively, or vomiting.
What you can do is to wipe off your cat’s paws to remove the pollen and get them away from the plant.
These are usually not life threatening, but is a good idea to get checked out by a vet if you are very concerned.
What Part of the Peace Lily Is Toxic?
Unfortunately, all parts of the peace lilies are toxic to cats. Even the pollen is toxic, so if it’s in the air and lands on your cat’s fur and they give themselves a bath, it can cause mouth irritation.
This doesn’t mean the plant is technically poisonous, but contains a compound- calcium oxalate crystals. This causes mild symptoms that, out in nature, was meant to keep animals from eating on these plants and giving them a better chance at surviving.
The bigger concern is if your cat decides to chew on the leaves. This is when the symptoms may be more likely to appear in your cat, as there’s a higher concentration of the oxalates than when it’s just pollen on their fur.
As answered above, are peace lilies toxic to cats? Yes they are. So maybe decide to keep your peace lily far away from your cats, give it away, or choose a different plant to grow instead.
Some good alternatives include the spider plant or snake plants! Both of these purify the air like the peace lily, but without as much stress over poisoning your cat.
