Wicked Plants Read online

  DANGEROUS

  Coyotillo

  KARWINSKIA HUMBOLDTIANA

  Coyotillo is a modest shrub of the Texas plains, rarely reaching more than five or six feet in height. The bright green, untoothed leaves and pale green flowers make it an entirely forgettable shrub. But the round black berries it produces in fall would be impossible to forget.

  FAMILY:

  Rhamnaceae

  HABITAT:

  Dry southwestern desert

  NATIVE TO:

  American West

  COMMON NAMES:

  Tullidora, cimmaron, palo negrito, capulincillo

  Coyotillo berries contain a compound that causes paralysis—but not immediately. The unlucky subject may not realize that he or she has been poisoned for several days or even weeks. But then, the paralysis sets in—and if this were a murder mystery, it would happen just as the unlucky victim was driving through a dark mountain pass or trying to sneak past the jewelry store’s security alarm. What author could invent a more devious drug?

  Animals have been known to lose control over their hind legs, or to lurch backward for no reason they could understand, under the influence of this harmless-looking berry. In the laboratory, administering just the right dose to animals would cause quadriplegia. Livestock browsing freely on the shrub could eventually lose control of their limbs entirely, and death would not be far behind.

  Coyotillo goes to work on the feet first and then moves to the lower legs. Once the limbs are still, it brings the respiratory system to a halt, and then it silences the tongue and throat. The plant thrives along the border between Texas and Mexico. Ironically, the name coyotillo is the diminutive of the Spanish word coyote, given to a person who helps illegal immigrants make the dangerous border crossing into the United States. One study counted about fifty people in Mexico who died from eating the berries during a two-year period.

  Once the limbs are still, coyotillo brings the respiratory system to a halt, and then it silences the tongue and throat.

  Coyotillo thrives in the canyons and dry riverbeds of southern Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, where it can tolerate the mean heat and scorched earth. Give it the right conditions and it may reach twenty feet, the size of a small tree.

  Meet the Relatives Coyotillo is a member of the buckthorn family; many shrubs in this family play host to butterflies. Most produce berries, but they don’t pose the same threat.

  DANGEROUS

  THIS HOUSEPLANT COULD BE YOUR LAST

  Some of the most popular houseplants are surprisingly toxic. They were chosen not for their suitability as a snack for pets and small children, but for their ability to thrive in a year-round climate of 50 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s why many houseplants are actually tropical plants that come from the jungles of South America and Africa.

  The poinsettia, one of the most reviled indoor plants, is not nearly as toxic as its reputation would lead one to believe. As a member of the Euphorbiaceae family, the sap is mildly irritating, but that is the extent of it. While the poinsettia gets plenty of bad press around the holidays, many other houseplants escape notice in spite of their more toxic qualities.

  PEACE LILY

  Spathiphyllum spp.

  A South American plant with simple white flowers that resemble calla lilies. In 2005 more people called poison control centers about possible peace lily poisoning than any other plant. (This may have more to do with how popular the plant is than how poisonous it is.) The plant contains calcium oxalate crystals that can bring on skin irritation, burning of the mouth, difficulty swallowing, and nausea.

  ENGLISH IVY

  Hedera helix

  This ubiquitous European vine grows outdoors as a ground cover but is also one of the most popular indoor potted plants. The berries are bitter enough to discourage people from eating them, but they could cause severe gastrointestinal problems and possible delirium or respiratory problems. Sap from the leaves can cause serious skin irritation and blisters.

  PHILODENDRON

  Philodendron spp.

  An ivylike plant native to South America in the West Indies. All parts of the plant contain calcium oxalates. Nibbling on a leaf might only bring about mild burning in the mouth or a little nausea, but ingesting it could lead to severe 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 with other 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 hospital every 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 ba
t, 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 were sickened over a six-year period. Most ate the berries themselves out of curiosity, but at least one child was fed nightshade by his parents in the mistaken hope that it would treat his diarrhea.

  Deadly nightshade performs its dark magic with the help of an alkaloid called atropine, which causes rapid heartbeat, confusion, hallucinations, and seizures. The symptoms are so unpleasant that atropine is sometimes added to potentially addictive painkillers to keep patients from getting hooked. Medical students memorize this simple mnemonic trick to help them recognize the signs of poisoning: “Hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet, and mad as a hatter.” “Madness” in this case refers to meaningless speech, a sign of deadly nightshade poisoning.

  The herbaceous perennial is found across Europe, Asia, and North America, where it flourishes in damp, shady spots. It grows to about three feet tall, producing pointed, oval-shaped leaves and purplish brown tubular flowers. From these flowers the bright black berries emerge, beginning as hard green fruit that ripen to red, finally reaching their full dark glory in the fall.

  Early physicians mixed up a potent brew of deadly nightshade, hemlock, mandrake, henbane, opium, and other herbs as a surgical anesthetic. Atropine still has medicinal uses today and has been administered as an antidote to poisoning from nerve gas and pesticide exposure.

  Italian women dropped mild tinctures of deadly nightshade into their eyes to dilate their pupils, which they thought made them more alluring. The name “belladonna” may come from this practice; it means “beautiful woman,” but the term might also originate from buona donna, a medieval witch doctor who treated the indigent with mysterious potions.

  Atropa comes from one of the three Fates of Greek mythology. Each Fate had a role in determining human destiny. Lachesis measured the thread of destiny at birth; Clotho spun the thread, controlling one’s destiny; and then, at the end, Atropos brought death at the time and manner of her choosing. Milton remembered her this way:

  Comes the blind Fury with the abhorrèd shears,

  And slits the thin-spun life.

  Meet the Relatives Member of the large and unruly Solanaceae family, which includes henbane, mandrake, datura, and the spicy Habanero chile pepper.

  DEADLY

  Death Camas

  ZIGADENUS VENENOSUS, OTHERS

  Several species of death camas thrive in meadows across the western United States. They are bulb plants with strappy, grasslike leaves and clusters of starry flowers in shades of pink, white, or yellow. The entire plant contains toxic alkaloids, and although the level of toxins may vary between species, it is safest to assume that they are all highly poisonous. Eating any part of the plant or the bulb will cause drooling or frothing at the mouth, vomiting, extreme weakness, an irregular pulse, and confusion and dizziness. In cases of severe poisoning, the final symptoms include seizures, coma, and death.

  FAMILY:

  Melanthiaceae

  HABITAT:

  Meadows

  NATIVE TO:

  North America, primarily in the West

  COMMON NAMES:

  Black snakeroot, star lily

  Death camas poisoning is a serious problem for livestock. Sheep tend to be drawn to the plant, especially in the early spring when there isn’t anything else to eat. If the ground is wet, they are often able to pull up the entire plant. There is no treatment for animals who have been sickened, and usually they are simply found dead.

  Dietitian and food historian Elaine Nelson McIntosh recently discovered that death camas might have played a role in the terrible illnesses that members of the Lewis and Clark expedition faced. In September 1805 the group passed through the Bitterroot Mountains, a particularly difficult range of the Rockies. They were already desperately low on food and suffering from a variety of nutrition related ailments, including dehydration, sore eyes, rashes, boils, and wounds that would not heal. On September 22 the group managed to obtain some food from the Nez Perce tribe. It included dried fish and the roots of a similar plant, blue camas (Camassia spp.), both of which the men had eaten before with no problem.

  Eventually Lewis and Clark’s team staggered on, facing a winter in which they would be forced to eat their dogs and take their chances with the roots of other unfamiliar plants.

  Members of the group were beset with violent illness and suffered from diarrhea and vomiting. Lewis himself was seriously ill for two weeks. Dr. McIntosh believes that the men may have been inadvertently poisoned by eating death camas instead of the edible blue camas. The flowers would not have been in bloom at the time, making it difficult to distinguish the two, and even local Indians familiar with the bulbs could have made an honest mistake. The expedition came to a halt while the men recovered. Eventually they staggered on, facing a winter in which they would be forced to eat their dogs and take their chances with the roots of other unfamiliar plants.

  Meet the Relatives Once classified in the lily family, death camas is now grouped into a family with other wild bulbs, many of them poisonous. Relatives include false hellebore (Veratrum album) and trillium (Trillium spp.).

  DEADLY

  DEADLY DINNER

  What do corn, potatoes, beans, and cashews have in common? They can all be poisonous under the right circumstances. Some of the world’s most important food crops contain toxic compounds that require them to be cooked or combined with other foods to make them safe. Some, like the grass pea, have earned a world wide reputation for turning a famine into an even more tragic catastrophe.

  GRASS PEA

  Lathyrus sativus

  Also called chickling vetch, this pea has been a dietary staple in the Mediterranean, Africa, India, and parts of Asia for centuries. Like most legumes, it is an excellent source of protein, but it has one serious drawback: it contains a neurotoxin called beta-N-oxalyl-diamino propionic acid, or beta-ODAP. The first symptom of beta-ODAP poisoning, or lathyrism, is a weakening of the legs. Eventually, the toxin kills nerve cells and victims become paralyzed from the waist down. Without treatment, they will die.

  How has this pea remained such a popular ingredient in flours, porridges, and stews? If they are soaked for a long time in water or fermented in breads or pancakes, they pose little risk. Grass peas are one of the few food crops that can survive a serious drought. People are then left with little else to eat—and not enough water to soak the peas in.

  Hippocrates warned that people who “ate peas continuously became impotent in the legs.” Today one of the great tragedies of famines in places like Ethiopia and Afghanistan is that the high-protein pea is typically reserved for men to give them strength so that they can feed their families. Instead, it has the opposite effect, reducing them to crawling on their knees (and as one report noted, “Wheelchairs aren’t an option for most lathyrism sufferers, as they tend to live in dirt-floor huts”). Even if the drought receded and they stopped eating the peas, they might still be disabled for life.

  Francisco Goya depicted the ravages of lathyrism in his circa 1810 aquatint print called Gracias a la Almorta, or “Thanks to the Grass Pea.” He was portraying a grueling outbreak that occurred during Spain’s war for independence against Napoleon’s army.

  The grass pea resembles a sweet pea. It is a climbing vine with fine tendrils and blue, pink, purple, or white flowers. It is often used as a fodder crop for cattle, and still shows up in the cuisine of many countries around the world.

  CORN

  Zea mays

  Native people in the Americas knew how to prepare this local crop safely. Traditional recipes called for adding slaked lime or calcium hydroxide, a naturally occurring mineral, to corn. (The basic recipe for tortillas still includes the addition of lime.) Without it, the niacin in
corn cannot be absorbed. This is not a problem unless corn is eaten by itself and makes up most of a person’s diet. When that happens—as it did with early settlers who did not understand the risks—the result is a severe niacin deficiency called pellagra.

  As early as 1735, when corn was imported from the New World, impoverished people in Spain and other European countries showed symptoms of pellagra. Those symptoms came to be known as the four D’s: dermatitis, dementia, diarrhea, and death. In fact, a pair of researchers writing for a British medical journal suggested that the ghastly symptoms of pellagra could have inspired European myths of vampirism in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: pale skin that erupted in blisters when exposed to the sun, sleepless nights brought on by dementia, an inability to eat normal food because of digestive problems, and a morbid appearance just before death.

  During the first half of the twentieth century, pellagra sickened three million Americans and killed one hundred thousand. The disease was not entirely understood until the 1930s. Today corn is considered to be a perfectly safe and healthy part of the diet as long as it is eaten in combination with other foods.

  RHUBARB

  Rheum x hybridum

  The leaves of this Asian plant contain high levels of oxalic acid, which can cause weakness, difficulty breathing, gastrointestinal problems, and even coma and death in rare circumstances. In 1917 the Times of London reported on the death of a minister who died after eating a dish made from rhubarb leaves. The unfortunate cook admitted that she had used a recipe that she found in the newspaper titled “War Time Tip from the National Training Schools of Cookery.” In fact, there was a war on, and food was scarce, but recipes like this one added yet another threat to both soldiers and civilians.