Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart
Briony Morrow-Cribbs (Illustrator)
Algonquin Books - 2009
Cautions: Murder and criminal element
Ages: Adult

Kiwi Magazine Review:
This book has it all. Murder, suicide, strangulation…we’re all at the mercy of merciless plants that inhabit the earth. Legends, myths, mysteries and mayhem all seem to begin with a single sprout of an innocent-looking plant. I had no idea there was even something called the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s federal noxious weeds list, but I assume these plants laugh in the general direction of any sort of regulation. There is a whole chapter called ‘Weeds of Mass Destruction,” which is thoroughly horribly enjoyable reading. This book is a great gift for plant lovers who just may think their plants love them to death.

Product Description
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. In Wicked Plants, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. You’ll learn which plants to avoid (like exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln’s mother).

Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.