Wicked Plants

I enjoyed this handsome little compendium of plant facts and lore. But it's also scary too. There's more than a few plants in this book that I never want to come in contact with. One that is native to Australia called the stinging tree can leave you in pain for up to a year. I also learned about several very invasive species of plants that are taking over both land and sea. There was also poisonous plants that need only hours to kill you after ingesting; and plants good for getting high (mostly mildly) although some of them look very much like other plants that will kill you. Lesson learned? Just say no. This book includes handsome etchings.

One of the many gifts I bemoan not having, including the talent for drawing and painting and a gift for singing, is the lack of a green thumb. This has not, of course, been for want of any attempts to cultivate it. My grandmother raised prize orchids in her garden when I was a very little girl, and she encouraged an interest in this (very fiddly) aspect of horticulture. Later on there were many attempts to grow vegetables and kitchen herbs in pots - none of which worked out. My mother often tells me: “Mainit ang kamay mo sa halaman.” The literal translation of this is that I have “hot hands” when it comes to plants, but the actual meaning is that I simply do not have a green thumb.

But despite having no green thumb, I have a great appreciation for plants and gardens, and the people who have the gift of raising them. Fresh flowers are a joy, if a bit expensive in the tropical climate of the Philippines, and if I had a kitchen garden (or at least access to one) I think I would eat more fresh fruits and vegetables more often.

And there is no denying that plants are just interesting. Aside from the obvious aesthetic and culinary value many of them possess, there is no denying that they are important for more than just food and decoration. Many plants are the source of important medicinal compounds - aspirin, one of the most important over-the-counter painkillers, is derived from a compound found in willow bark, which itself was used as a painkiller in the form of willow bark tea. Digitalis is a compound derived from plants commonly called foxgloves, and helps in the treatment of irregular heart rate. And there are probably thousands more plant-derived compounds that have yet to be discovered, and which will undoubtedly play a role in the treatment of various diseases, chronic or otherwise, in the future.

But for all their potentially useful properties, there is also no denying that plants also kill. Digitalis, though helpful in controlling irregular heart rate, is a dangerous poison if ingested without supervision. Plants from the genus Colchicum, which include a variety of plants commonly known as crocuses (such as the autumn crocus) produce an alkaloid called colchicine, useful as a treatment for gout. However, that same alkaloid is a deadly poison: Catherine Wilson, a notorious 19th century murderer, used colchicine in just such a capacity to kill seven people - but not before getting those people to change their wills so that she would stand to benefit from their deaths.

It was because of these strange, and exceedingly interesting, connections between medicine, science, history, and plain out-and-out weirdness that I chose to pick up Amy Stewart's Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities. I will also admit that the spectacular, over-the-top title was part of the appeal: it's hard to think of an “atrocity” being “botanical,” but Stewart is quick to prove that there are sometimes, the most innocuous-looking plants might also be the deadliest.

Wicked Plants is, in essence, an encyclopedia: an organized collection of information about some of the deadliest plants Stewart thought would be worth mentioning. In the introduction ominously titled “Consider Yourself Warned,” Stewart clarifies that her book is not meant to scare people out of enjoying the outdoors or gardening, but is meant to act as a field guide for those who do enjoy such pursuits. This bears itself out in the entries: while Stewart is always quick to point out the obvious dangers of such plants as poison ivy (which isn't really a species of ivy) and deadly nightshade, she also includes some less notable (but no less deadly) examples, such as the castor bean and the habanero chili. Also included as “deadly” are the plants that have given humanity some of the most addictive drugs currently known, such as tobacco (though it is included for reasons other than just smoking) and the opium poppy, as well as invasive species such as the kudzu vine and the water hyacinth.

Supplementing the wealth of information that Stewart provides are the lovely etchings by Briony Morrow-Cribbs and illustrations by Jonathan Rosen. They give Wicked Plants a vastly different feel compared to some of the other plant encyclopedias currently available, hearkening back to the old-fashioned botanical illustrations that dominated similar texts from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But the etchings and illustrations are so well done, with great attention paid to detail, that it doesn't really matter that these are hand-drawn illustrations and not glossy photographs. Morrow-Cribbs' etchings, in particular, are simply a joy to look at: a clear illustration of how science and art are really kin to each other, a reminder that for science to advance, it must look upon the world with the wonder of an artist's eye, and for art to advance, it must approach the craft with the discipline of a scientist.

This book was as informative and enjoyable as I had hoped it would be, despite its focus on plants in temperate climes. This is only natural, as this book was obviously intended for readers in temperate climes, and in that sense it functions just fine as a field guide. A few exotic tropical species are included, but it is apparent these made the book only because they are particularly grotesque or particularly lethal. The inclusion of invasive species as dangerous plants is a fine idea, in my opinion, especially considering what invasive species are doing to native species, both in North America and elsewhere.

As a whole, this was a very enjoyable, educational read. The illustrations are lovely, and the text informative without being overly technical or mind-numbingly boring. While it is fun enough to read it for its own sake as a popular-science text, it also functions quite well for the purpose Stewart intended it: a guide to poisonous plants, a means of gaining knowledge to protect oneself and those one cares for. That it educates while entertaining is merely the icing on the cake.