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Don't Feed The Plants

Debunked: Flowers are bad in hospital rooms because they suck oxygen out of air.

An old wives' tale (and apparently at least one medical article, which I haven't tracked down: IY) says that flowers suck oxygen out of the air and shouldn't stay in patients' rooms overnight. While plants do metabolize oxygen, and at night when not photosynthesizing take up more oxygen than they produce, the amount flowers would use up is trivial, in comparison to the patient and visitors. There is an argument for removing flowers, in that in some cases they have been the source of bacterial infections of patients, but even this is rare. Reference: The Guthrie Journal, 65(3):123-124 (Summer 1996), Arthur B. King, MD.

References:

• http://tafkac.org/medical/hospital_flowers.html