Title: Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
Author: Amy Stewart
Pages: 236
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1565126831
A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. In Wicked Plants, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.
You’ll learn which plants to avoid (like exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother).
Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.
Leave it to Amy Stewart and her bestselling horticultural quasi-thriller, Wicked Plants, to introduce us to some of the plant world’s nefarious inhabitants. With her signature style of wry humor and botanical knowledge, she has created an immensely readable reference book on fearsome flora, the potentially dangerous world of plants, be they ornamental, edible, land-based, or aquatic.
She combines horticultural facts with bits of history, drama, intrigue, and humor, readily communicating the gruesome attributes of a wide range of plants, from well-known house and garden plants to more rare tropical jewels.
The book is arranged alphabetically by common plant name, interspersed with discussions of groups of plants in chapters with diabolical titles like The Devil’s Bartender, Weeds of Mass Destruction, Deadly Dinner, and More Than One Way to Skin a Cat. Plants are categorized by the type of wickedness possessed: from the merely offensive (the social misfits, stinkers, or just disgusting), to the intoxicating or illegal, dangerous, destructive, painful, and the downright deadly.
The book’s unique cover, one of 2009’s ten top-rated covers by Amazon.com, gives the small volume the look of a handsomely aged, hand-me-down diary of loathsome botanical scoundrels, replete with antique-looking etchings and bewitching illustrations.
From the potentially deadly little berries of garden lantana (Lantana camara) to the creepy, noxious, invasive “killer alga” (Caulerpa taxifolia) that covers over thirty-two thousand acres of the world’s oceans, to mind-bending peyote (Lophophora williamsii) buttons, the book provides information on plant family, habitat, origin, and common names, the hazardous portion of the plant, and its effects on humans. It is an engaging way to learn about the risks that lurk in our midst; while not encyclopedic, it covers a broad enough spectrum of plants to create an entertaining yet educational resource.
Author: Amy Stewart
Pages: 236
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1565126831
A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. In Wicked Plants, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.
You’ll learn which plants to avoid (like exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother).
Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.
Leave it to Amy Stewart and her bestselling horticultural quasi-thriller, Wicked Plants, to introduce us to some of the plant world’s nefarious inhabitants. With her signature style of wry humor and botanical knowledge, she has created an immensely readable reference book on fearsome flora, the potentially dangerous world of plants, be they ornamental, edible, land-based, or aquatic.
She combines horticultural facts with bits of history, drama, intrigue, and humor, readily communicating the gruesome attributes of a wide range of plants, from well-known house and garden plants to more rare tropical jewels.
The book is arranged alphabetically by common plant name, interspersed with discussions of groups of plants in chapters with diabolical titles like The Devil’s Bartender, Weeds of Mass Destruction, Deadly Dinner, and More Than One Way to Skin a Cat. Plants are categorized by the type of wickedness possessed: from the merely offensive (the social misfits, stinkers, or just disgusting), to the intoxicating or illegal, dangerous, destructive, painful, and the downright deadly.
The book’s unique cover, one of 2009’s ten top-rated covers by Amazon.com, gives the small volume the look of a handsomely aged, hand-me-down diary of loathsome botanical scoundrels, replete with antique-looking etchings and bewitching illustrations.
From the potentially deadly little berries of garden lantana (Lantana camara) to the creepy, noxious, invasive “killer alga” (Caulerpa taxifolia) that covers over thirty-two thousand acres of the world’s oceans, to mind-bending peyote (Lophophora williamsii) buttons, the book provides information on plant family, habitat, origin, and common names, the hazardous portion of the plant, and its effects on humans. It is an engaging way to learn about the risks that lurk in our midst; while not encyclopedic, it covers a broad enough spectrum of plants to create an entertaining yet educational resource.
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