Agents of Intoxication
Intoxicating plants are a group of particularly devious villains. Betel nut, an addictive stimulant that turns teeth black and saliva red, is chewed by 400 million people around the world. It is thought to lead to an increased risk of mouth cancer and may contribute to asthma and heart disease. Tobacco, of course, is a leaf so toxic that it has taken the lives of ninety million people worldwide. Perhaps smokers would think twice if they knew that nicotine is an ingredient of insecticides.
Troublemakers on the Table
And even some of the world’s most important food crops contain toxins that require cooking or preparation to be safe. One of the plant kingdom’s biggest crime families is the cashew family. Cashews are part of a family that includes poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac. The cashew tree produces the same irritating oil, urushiol. Cashew nuts are perfectly safe, but the shells are not. For that reason, the nuts are steamed open and partially cooked to neutralize the toxin.
Carnivores
The exhibition includes many other natural born killers including a variety of carnivorous plants that make the best of a bad situation. Growing in bogs where the soil is nutrient poor, these plants use a variety of trapping techniques to supplement their diets with insects and even small mammals. So this summer, don’t miss Wicked Plants at the Conservatory of Flowers. It’s a who’s who of botanical rogues and assassins. Meet them if you dare!
Copies of Amy Stewart’s award-winning books are available through
the Conservatory’s gift shop and on Amazon.
Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart.
On October 6, Amy Stewart discusses her newest book Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon's Army and other Diabolical Insects. Book signing included. M. Stewart is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the American Horticulture Society's Book Award, and a California Horticultural Society Writer's Award.
Images by Nina Sazevich. (1) In the foreground is an example of castor bean from which ricin is derived implicated in the 1978 umbrella murder of Communist defector Georgi Markov. Morning glory, a plant that can cause LSD-like hallucinations, grows up the gazebo frame. (2) White snakeroot in the cage, "the weed that killed Lincoln’s mother", and referred to in the subtitle of Amy Stewart’s book that inspired the show.
Images (3) and (4) are of Monkshood and Hellebore.
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