Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow Lives of Plants

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The facts about the different plants, and the folklore and mythology that are included make it feel like such a rich tapestry of storytelling.

Botanical Curses and Poisons: The - Yumpu EBOOK [P.D.F] Botanical Curses and Poisons: The - Yumpu

Content warnings: Discussions of death, murder, poisoning, injury, medical symptoms, miscarriage and other medical grimness. There are also historical and religious elements broader than folklore that are quite eye-opening, and that serve as interesting reminders about truth within reported history. I’ll be honest, at first a book about just poisons didn’t seem as wide of a topic as a book about herbal medicine in general, and so I was surprised to see that Botanical Curses and Poisons is actually quite a bit longer than Folk Magic and Healing. But describing it as a book about poisons is selling it short. Lots of plants can be poisonous but only in specific ways—maybe only a certain part of the plant is toxic or it’s dangerous only if prepared in a certain way. (Inky cap mushrooms, for instance, are safe to eat unless consumed with alcohol, at which point they become poisonous.) Plus, in addition to poisonous plants, it covers all sorts of plants with sinister history, ranging from uses in dark magic to mythological associations with death. The latter is actually a huge category, as there are all sorts of fascinating reasons a plant would become associated with death—perhaps it’s the favored flower of a goddess of death, or it might grow in graveyards, or it smells like rotting flesh, or maybe it just has a pale and spectral look that made people think of ghosts. Beans were associated with death in the British Isles because people noticed that more accidents happened in the mines during the season when bean plants flower, which was definitely caused by the beans and not the fact that mines were more dangerous during the rainy season! Other plants have built-in abilities that can feel sinister or malevolent. Cogon grass is very flammable and burns hotter than regular flames, an ability it uses to burn down the other plants around it to make room for cogon shoots to sprout in the newly barren earth. HARDCOVER. Condition: NEW. Liminal 11. HARDCOVER. 2021. 1912634228 :Subject:Science | Natural History . NEW. Reader, it was probably one of the best random decisions I’ve made in a while. This book was fantastic.Discover the folklore and history of our most malignant, toxic plants. Poisonings are among the most memorable deaths in history, from the Roman Empire to the Medieval era and beyond. Concealed and deliberate, it is a crime that must be planned in advance. And yet there is a fine line between healing and poisoning – Paracelsus argued that only the dosage matters! Today is my spot on the blog tour for 𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐒; ᴛʜᴇ ꜱʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ-ʟɪᴠᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴘʟᴀɴᴛꜱ by Fez Inkwright. Thank you to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours and Liminal 11 for sending me a copy of this beautiful book. At a fundamental level, we are all sustained by plants, either from the oxygen they supply or from the food they can provide or by using them to build shelters. But we would be foolish to think of them as passive lifeforms that can accept being munched by any passing animal. They have developed sophisticated defences to stop them from disappearing down the gullet of a herbivore. These defences can vary from the spiked leaves, sour-tasting stems all the way to the utterly lethal parts of some plants that can kill an animal in a short space of time. Fez Inkwright is an illustrator and author with a passion and knowledge of botany, nature, primitive religions, and folklore. She has produced work for children's books, created hand-drawn maps, and designed tattoos. She lives in Bristol, England. The book is beautifully illustrated by simple mono line drawings which stir the imagination and which give, along with the text, a comprehensive guide to the A-Z of Plants which could potentially do great harm. There is a disclaimer at the start of the book to not try any of these as the book is for information and entertainment only and not a medicinal guide to try plant based medicine at home.

Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow Lives of Plants

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This book is a perfect mix of botany, folklore, and all things witchy. It is a very interesting read, especially for non-fiction, and is beautifully illustrated throughout. Unexpected additions to this list were plants such as broad beans, hydrangea, willow and even basil. There are some truly deadly additions to this list including one that is highly restricted under the terrorism act in the UK. As well as the plants that will make your life much shorter and painful, Inkwright has included plants that have been used in folklore to curse others, such as elder, hellebore and willow.