Wicked Plants

Wicked Plants: the Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities -- Amy Stewart (2009): This book is so fun! I've just been flipping around and reading entries as they catch my eye, but so far it's a strangely compelling mix of botany, history, and morbid warnings. It's like the Deluxe Transitive Vampire, but for "the sordid lives of plants behaving badly" instead of grammar. There are fine pen and ink illustrations, latin names and common names, and the plants are further categorized into Deadly, Dangerous, Illegal, Intoxicating, or Destructive, depending. (of course there's a little overlap between a couple of those categories.) I love the common names! I just opened it up to see "Grapple Plant or Devil's Claw" right above the "Unicorn Plant."

Here's a bit from an entry on a plant most everyone's heard of: Deadly Nightshade/ Atropa Belladonna: Professor and plant researcher Henry G. Walters speculated in 1915 about the potential for cross-breeding carnivorous and poisonous plants. He believed that if a poisonous plant had "the semimuscular system possessed by the carnivorous plants, it would be more dangerous than the cholera." Dr. Walters declared that plants were capable of love and that they had memories, implying that they might also hold a grudge as lovers do. The deadly nightshade, he believed, was filled with hatred.

The section I quoted is obviously more on the historical side, but she does go on to talk not only about the poisonous nature of the plant (deadly, as the name implies) but also about historical cosmetic use of the plant (to dilate pupils), and the origin of the name. "Atropa comes from one of the three Fates of Greek mythology. (...interesting part about the other fates that you should read yourself...) ...and then, at the end, Atropos brought death at the time and manner of her choosing." I should copy this out and slip it under the door of the maniac that works next door who confessed, in one of his many bouts of over sharing, that he likes deadly nightshade berries on his cereal.

The copy I'm reading is a library book, but I must have a copy of my own! Beyond just being interesting reading, I think it could also be very useful for gardeners, or for those who write songs with evil botanical themes (Colin Meloy), or even those wishing to write murder mysteries with plant poisonings. They can't all die from foxglove (digitalis) tea!

Read more about it here.