Wicked Plants Read Online Free Page B

abdominal pain, and repeated skin contact may cause serious allergic reactions. Poison control centers in the United States got over sixteen hundred calls in 2006 related to philodendron poisoning.

DIEFFENBACHIA OR DUMB CANE
Dieffenbachia
spp.
    A tropical South American plant well known for its ability to temporarily inflame vocal cords, leaving people unable to speak. Some species are believed to have been used as an arrow poison in combination withother plants. Most poisonings involve severe irritation of the mouth and throat, swelling of the tongue and face, and stomach problems. The sap is also irritating to the skin, and can cause light sensitivity and pain if it gets in the eyes.

FICUS TREE AND RUBBER TREE
Ficus benjamina, F. elastica
    These two indoor trees are closely related species in the mulberry family. The latex from these plants can provoke severe allergic reactions. One case history describes a woman who developed anaphylactic shock and other frightening symptoms that disappeared promptly after her ficus tree was removed from her home.

PENCIL CACTUS OR MILKBUSH
Euphorbia tirucalli
    This African plant is not actually a cactus, but it gets its name from the long, skinny stems that resemble a succulent. Pencil cactus has become popular in modern interior design for its striking, architectural shape. But like other euphorbia, it produces a corrosive sap that causes severe rashes and eye irritation. It requires some pruning to keep it down to a reasonable size indoors, and gardeners are often surprised that a single pruning session can bring on such a painful reaction.

JERUSALEM CHERRY OR CHRISTMAS CHERRY
Solanum pseudocapsicum
    Often sold as an ornamental pepper plant, it is actually more closely related to deadly nightshade. All parts of the plant contain an alkaloid that can bring on weakness, drowsiness, nausea and vomiting, and heart problems.

DEADLY

Deadly Nightshade
    ATROPA BELLADONNA
    Professor and plant researcher Henry G. Walters speculated in 1915 about the potential for crossbreeding carnivorous and poisonous plants. He believed that if a poisonous plant had “the semimuscular system possessed by the carnivorous plants, it would be more dangerous than the cholera.” Dr. Walters declared that plants were capable of love and that they had memories, implying that they might also hold a grudge as lovers do. The deadly nightshade, he believed, was filled with hatred.
    FAMILY :
Solanaceae
    HABITAT :
Shady, damp areas; seeds need uniformly damp soil to germinate
    NATIVE TO :
Europe, Asia, north Africa
    COMMON NAMES :
Belladonna, devil’s cherry, dwale (an Anglo-Saxon word meaning “a stupefying or soporific drink”)
    Although the entire plant is poisonous—just rubbing up against it can raise pustules on the skin—the blackberries are the plant’s most tempting feature. A Virginia farmer named Charles Wilson lost his children to those berries in 1880. The youngsters’ terse obituary suggests an agonizing weekend: “The first and youngest died last Thursday, the second, on Sunday night, and the third, and only remaining child, on Monday.”
    Even today, tales of deadly nightshade poisoning appear in the medical literature. An elderly woman turned up at the hospitalevery fall in a kind of psychosis; doctors were unable to trace the cause of her hallucinations, delusions, and headaches. After several days, the symptoms would subside on their own. Finally, her daughter brought in a handful of berries from a shrub growing near her house. She had been snacking on deadly nightshade every autumn when the berries grew ripe but somehow managed to escape a fatal poisoning.
    “Hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet, and mad as a hatter.”
    This is far from the only case: A couple earned their place in medical history by baking a pie of nightshade berries, mistaking them for the much more edible bilberries. In Turkey, a review of nightshade poisoning found that forty-nine children