Wicked Plants The Weed That Killed Lincoln Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities (Audible Audio Edition) Amy Stewart Coleen Marlo Tantor Audio Books
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Beware! The sordid lives of plants behaving badly. 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. Amy Stewart, best-selling author of Flower Confidential, takes on over 200 of Mother Nature's most appalling creations in an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.
Stewart renders a vivid portrait of evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, enlighten, and alarm even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.
Wicked Plants The Weed That Killed Lincoln Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities (Audible Audio Edition) Amy Stewart Coleen Marlo Tantor Audio Books
I love reading crime fiction, and got a kick out of this book just from the perspective of the many ways a plant can kill. But there are other considerations, too. As Amy Stewart says in the Introduction: "We'll brew a medicinal tea from unrecognizable bark and leaves that a friend passes along, assuming that anything natural must be safe. And when a baby comes home, we rush to add safety caps to electrical outlets but ignore the houseplant in the kitchen and the shrub by the front door – this in spite of the fact that 3,900 people are injured annually by electrical outlets while 68,847 are poisoned by plants." (This book was published in 2009.)The plants are presented in alphabetical order, and each is put into one of 7 categories. Several, you'll see, fall into more than one category:
....DEADLY. One example is the castor bean. In castor oil, the poisonous ingredient is processed out of the plant. But ricin, found in the seeds, is the poison used to kill Georgi Markov in 1978. Remember the soviet defector killed by a jab from an umbrella?
....ILLEGAL. The peyote cactus is in this category, though I believe the Supreme Court has given religious dispensation. It's actually pretty difficult to find in the desert now, because it's slow-growing and has been over-harvested.
....INTOXICATING. Speaking of plants you may grow at home, the Morning Glory has a surprise. It's seeds have small quantities of LSD.
....DANGEROUS. My Mom has planted Lobelia in her spring garden. But probably not the variety nicknamed "vomitwort".
....PAINFUL. Celery – yes, celery – is dangerous to eat in large quantities before sunbathing. It has "phototoxic compounds" which react to the sunlight.
....DESTRUCTIVE. Even I've heard of kudzu, introduced in the southern U.S. to abate soil erosion. Works great, except it never stops growing and is nearly indestructible: "This vine covers seven million acres in the United States. The damage it has caused is estimated in the hundreds of millions."
....OFFENSIVE. You don't want to plant the Squirting Cucumber in your garden. This juice of this species will cause vomiting and diarrhea. AND, "it's two-inch-long fruits are famous for bursting when ripe, squirting a slimy, mucuslike juice and seeds almost twenty feet away."
I very much like the book's presentation. The pages are not totally white, but shaded as if it's a well-used gardener's notebook. Plants are shown by charming copper etchings by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. There are also some illustrations by Jonathon Rosen.
The book doesn't have an index, but there's an extensive bibliography.
Stewart's writing style is breezy and "Wicked Plants" is a lot of fun.
If you haven't run across her books before, she wrote a 2011 companion book,
Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects
And I enjoyed her 2013 foray into "The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks",
The Drunken Botanist
Happy Reader
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Wicked Plants The Weed That Killed Lincoln Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities (Audible Audio Edition) Amy Stewart Coleen Marlo Tantor Audio Books Reviews
I got this book on a Deal of the Day around the holidays.
I had much the same trouble with this book as I did with her other book "Wicked Bugs". These are essentially bathroom books. They have very short chapters, usually some appropriate anecdote and a scientific blurb. Taken with that in mind, these books are OK, but I was confused by the chapter layout and redundancy of information. Pecans seemed to show up several times (I get it, they are related to poison ivy) and I couldn't understand the qualifying layouts "Deadly" "Painful" and so on. Was there a pattern to this presentation?
And whether there is a formatting issue on the products or not, pictures seem to be randomly scattered throughout the book without labeling and there are these curious paragraphs apropos of nothing. If there was a formatting issue that is beyond the author's fault then OK, but as far as a reading experience goes, this was frustrating.
There are wonderful books out there about the role biology plays in history - anything from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to almost any Stephen Jay Gould book. I guess most of them arent' about plants, so this niche seems ripe, so to speak. But the execution of Wicked Plants got in the way for me, though I certainly don't look at cashews in quite the same way.
This is a fascinating nonfiction book about mostly common plants--and how they can kill you!
All of the plants mentioned in the book are noxious and to be avoided. Some are downright deadly. It contains fascinating historical lore and criminal legend (which were my favorite parts), but also a healthy dose of medicine and science dished up in a way that was really interesting. Those topics are not usually interesting to me but the author presented it in a way that really kept me hooked. The illustrations were a nice touch, but I am going to be greedy and say I wished there were also full-color photographs to make identification of the plants easier. It was amazing to think that so little dosage of some tiny plants could be so fatal. This is definitely a book a mystery writer, or potential murderer, would want to read. It should be required reading for anyone planting a garden. It is more a gift or trivia book rather than for a serious researcher. Even if you're not a gardener, or potential murderer, this book is interesting and written in a way that could provide just pure fun and enjoyment. It is a book you will want to sip slowly, to savor.
At one time, much of this would have been common knowledge as people were more in tune and in contact with the natural world around them. Books like this are so important so that vital knowledge, and folklore, isn't lost.
I loved it. it's full of exotic lore, very well written, with a humorous punch to it. Amy has way with words. nice paper, I like the size, too, so easy to carry or hold while reading; one can feel the thoughts given to the production. the etchings by Briony Morrow-Cribbs are outstanding. I was not as enthralled by Jonathon Rosen sketches, however. But all in all - very good production, Algonquin books of chapel hill. Thanks.By the way, poison hemlok is mentioned a few times in the old testament. it is called ROSH in hebrew. and Mandrakes are mentioned too, as Le'a gave them to Rachel to buy of a night with Jacob. they are known as DUDAIM in hebrew.
The book is well written and interesting, but superficial regarding the plants and species treated. Amy tells the basic story of many of the more pedestrian poisonous plants, and a very short paragraph on many more. She does a rudimentary examination on how the plants affect the human body, but not in detail.
All in all, an interesting book, just not a lot of detail. For the average reader, It's an interesting read.
I love reading crime fiction, and got a kick out of this book just from the perspective of the many ways a plant can kill. But there are other considerations, too. As Amy Stewart says in the Introduction "We'll brew a medicinal tea from unrecognizable bark and leaves that a friend passes along, assuming that anything natural must be safe. And when a baby comes home, we rush to add safety caps to electrical outlets but ignore the houseplant in the kitchen and the shrub by the front door – this in spite of the fact that 3,900 people are injured annually by electrical outlets while 68,847 are poisoned by plants." (This book was published in 2009.)
The plants are presented in alphabetical order, and each is put into one of 7 categories. Several, you'll see, fall into more than one category
....DEADLY. One example is the castor bean. In castor oil, the poisonous ingredient is processed out of the plant. But ricin, found in the seeds, is the poison used to kill Georgi Markov in 1978. Remember the soviet defector killed by a jab from an umbrella?
....ILLEGAL. The peyote cactus is in this category, though I believe the Supreme Court has given religious dispensation. It's actually pretty difficult to find in the desert now, because it's slow-growing and has been over-harvested.
....INTOXICATING. Speaking of plants you may grow at home, the Morning Glory has a surprise. It's seeds have small quantities of LSD.
....DANGEROUS. My Mom has planted Lobelia in her spring garden. But probably not the variety nicknamed "vomitwort".
....PAINFUL. Celery – yes, celery – is dangerous to eat in large quantities before sunbathing. It has "phototoxic compounds" which react to the sunlight.
....DESTRUCTIVE. Even I've heard of kudzu, introduced in the southern U.S. to abate soil erosion. Works great, except it never stops growing and is nearly indestructible "This vine covers seven million acres in the United States. The damage it has caused is estimated in the hundreds of millions."
....OFFENSIVE. You don't want to plant the Squirting Cucumber in your garden. This juice of this species will cause vomiting and diarrhea. AND, "it's two-inch-long fruits are famous for bursting when ripe, squirting a slimy, mucuslike juice and seeds almost twenty feet away."
I very much like the book's presentation. The pages are not totally white, but shaded as if it's a well-used gardener's notebook. Plants are shown by charming copper etchings by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. There are also some illustrations by Jonathon Rosen.
The book doesn't have an index, but there's an extensive bibliography.
Stewart's writing style is breezy and "Wicked Plants" is a lot of fun.
If you haven't run across her books before, she wrote a 2011 companion book,
Wicked Bugs The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects
And I enjoyed her 2013 foray into "The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks",
The Drunken Botanist
Happy Reader
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