THE WEED THAT KILLED LINCOLN'S MOTHER C OTHER T BOTANICAL ATROCITIES

ETCHINGS BY

BRIONY MORRO W-CRIBBS

ILLUSTRATIONS B JONATHON ROSEN Y

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2009

xiii Consider Yourself Warned

1 3 7

11 15 17 21 25 27 31 35 37 43 46 51 55 57 63 67

Aconite Arrow Poisons Ayahuasca Vine and Chacruna Betel Nut Castor Bean Ordeal Poisons Coca Coyotillo This Houseplant Could Be Your Last Deadly Nightshade Death Camas Deadly Dinner Ergot Fatal Fungus Habanero Chili Henbane The Devil's Bartender Iboga Jimson Weed

IX

70 75 82 87 89 93 95 99

Botanical Crime Families Khat Stop and Smell the Ragweed Kudzu Lawn of Death Mala Mujer Here Comes the Sun Manchineel Tree

79 -Killer Algae

101 Don't Look Now 105 Mandrake 109 Marijuana 113 Oleander 116 Forbidden Garden 121 Opium Poppy 124 Dreadful Bouquet 129 Peacock Flower 133 Peyote Cactus 135 Psychedelic Plants 139 Poison Hemlock 143 Purple Loosetrife 146 Weeds of Mass Destruction 151 Ratbane 155 Rosary Pea

157 The Terrible Toxicodendrons 161 Sago Palm 163 More Than One Way to Skin a Cat 167 Stinging Tree 169 Meet the Nettles 173 Strychnine Tree 177 Suicide Tree 179 Carnivores 183 Tobacco 187 Toxic Blue-Green Algae 189 Duck and Cover 193 Water Hemlock 197 Water Hyacinth 200 Social Misfists 207 Whistling Thorn Acacia 209 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 213 White Snakeroot 216 Don't Tread on Me 221 Yew
END NOTES

227

Antidote^

229 About the Artists 231 Poison Gardens 233 Bibliography