Cut flowers and potted plants are said to suck oxygen out of a sick person's room.
Many bad superstitions are associated with plants and flowers. Blooming trees and plants out of season has always been seen as a bad omen. In the old days, it was believed that white flowers brought into the house accelerated the death of the owners. They especially avoided giving white flowers with drooping heads and a heavy, viscous smell.
There was a strong prejudice in England for bouquets that combined red and white flowers. If such a bouquet was brought to a sick person, it was considered a wish for him to die soon.
In principle, red flowers are considered a wish for happiness. Scarlet flowers symbolize vitality. Therefore, the combination of red and scarlet colors is perceived with approval. But the combination of red and white colors seems to mean blood and bandages.
In some English hospitals, bouquets are generally prohibited. And in the forties of the XX century. nurses who allowed the appearance of bouquets in the wards of patients were fired from their jobs. If the bouquets consisted of red and white flowers, the nurse received such a characteristic that she was no longer hired by any medical institution.
Flowers that were brought to hospitals or hospitals were never placed on the bed of sick people. There was a custom according to which a patient leaving the hospital left his flowers in pots in the ward. It was believed that if he took them with him, he would soon return to the same room.
In addition, people believed that cut flowers and potted plants placed in hospital wards sucked oxygen from the room and deprived patients of air. Researchers of urban legends found evidence of these horrors in a book dated 1923. However, in their opinion, this superstition has its roots in the Middle Ages.
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Flowers don't actually suck oxygen out of the room. It is scientifically proven that plants use oxygen at night, and during the day they give it in ten times. If it seems to you that it is better not to leave sick people overnight with flowers, then take into account the following information.
A plant weighing half a kilogram consumes 0.1 liters of oxygen per hour. At the same time, a person weighing 75 kilograms, being in a calm and immobile state, uses 71 liters of oxygen per hour. Thus, a nurse visiting a patient several times a night uses much more oxygen than a plant in a pot on a windowsill.
