Wicked botanicals of the plant world

They can be some of the most effective of assassins, striking in silence, often with concealed weapons and without motion or emotion. And they’re all around us, even in our own yards.

Armed with nettles, thorns or hidden poison, these deadly denizens of the plant world can look pretty and innocent. But they’re capable of inflicting terrible pain and even death.

“For the most part, we tend to assume that if it’s green and it’s growing out of the ground it’s all natural and good for you,” says Amy Stewart, the author of the best-selling book, “Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Abraham Lincoln’s Mother and other Botanical Atrocities.” “But the fact is that most plants don’t want to get eaten. And if you’re one of those plants, the first order of your day is to not get eaten for the day. Plants don’t have arms and legs like we do, but they can inflict pain and suffering on anyone who tries to eat them.”

Nature has equipped some plants with fascinating and even macabre ways of defending themselves or, in the case of the dreaded Corpse Flower, attracting the right pollinators.

Amorphophallus titanium, as this 9-foot plant shaped like a phallus is botanically named, produces a compound of sulphurous chemicals - cadaverine and putrescin, the same chemicals that break down carrion, said Michael Largo, who explores some of horticulture’s strangest and most amazing adaptations in the “Big Bad Book of Botany.”

Growing in boggy areas with few floral neighbors, they have adapted a powerful attractant that smells like rotting flesh to draw flies to their neighborhood to aid in pollination.

“They have no brains and no nervous system that we could compare them to and yet they’ve found this way to attract pollinators through odor as opposed to beauty,” Largo marveled.

Popular gee-whiz plants in botanical gardens, Corpse Flowers, native to the rain forests of Sumatra, are not likely to inhabit your neighborhood. Neither should you worry too much about Devil’s Breath which, if ingested, can render you incapable of exercising free will for up to several days and leave you with no memory of the what you did or what happened to you. It is the basis of the drug Scopolamine, a so-called zombie drug, and is commonly found in South America.

“Plants have been around for 400 millions years at least and each plant has found a way to survive, adapt, attract or dissuade herbivores through an almost biochemical magic,” Largo says.

One of the most common deadly plants is hemlock - the plant and not the tree - famous as Socrates’ poison of choice. It’s an herbaceous wild plant with lacy, triangular-shaped leaves that when crushed emit a rank odor. It operates under numerous aliases, including Poison Parsley, Devil’s Flower and Beaver Poison. said Largo, who lives in Florida. Largo maintains that Plato romanticized Socrates’ peaceful death. In fact, hemlock poisoning is excruciating, leaves its victims convulsing and gasping for breath.

Some plants, like poison oak, may not kill you but they do want to hurt you to ward you off. This is also true of euphorbia. It’s a common garden plant along the North Coast. But Stewart, a devoted gardener who lives in Eureka and has written a series of quirky scientific books about everything from deadly bugs to earthworms to growing your own cocktail ingredients, said the sap is very toxic. Beware when pruning. If you get any in your eye, go immediately to urgent care to get your eyes professionally washed.

Another nasty plant is nettle. While it makes for some nutritional, iron-packed teas, the common Urtica dioica will make you pay with a flaming pain caused by an injection of histamine, acetylcholine, seratonin 5-HT, leukotrienes and folic acid. Fortunately, the pain is short-lived.

Then there is the sneaky Mandrake or Satan’s Apple, member of the notorious nightshade family. It’s a deceptively pretty plant, said Largo, with attractive flowers and green leaves. Every part of it is poisonous. The fruit appears edible, but if you bite into it raw it can kill you. The roots are the most deadly, containing a dangerous concoction of chemicals.

Some killer plants have the power to change history. Stewart points to White Snakeroot, which indirectly led to the death of Abraham Lincoln’s mother. Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of what was known 200 years ago as the milk sickness, caused by drinking contaminated milk from cows that would nibble on the toxic perennial.

“No one understood it until the beginning of the 20th century. Little Abe was only 9 years old and he helped make his mother’s coffin. It changed the life of someone who went on to change all of our lives,” Stewart said.

A more menacing plant to west coast dwellers however, is monkshood, also known as wolfsbane. With its beautiful, deep purple flowers, it’s a popular garden plant, but one of the most toxic if ingested.

All parts of monkshood are poisonous, especially the roots and seeds. Historically, wolves and criminals were poisoned with an extract of Acontium lycoctonum, and according to lore it was a key ingredient in witches’ brew.

The good news is that plants won’t attack you unless you attack them.

“They’re only threatening if you eat them,” Stewart stressed.

There are lots of poisons sitting around your house, she said, that you wouldn’t throw away just because they might harm you if you ingested them.

Just make sure you know what you’re eating and when in doubt, don’t take that fatal bite. Because what you don’t know could kill you.

Reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com