On June 1, Amy Stewart shared her wealth of wicked knowledge with over 125 guests at our Wicked Plants lecture. In the Conservatory's Orchid Gallery, Ms. Stewart wove tales of the deviant plants she encountered in her research, and showed slides of different examples of plants and gardens around the world. She began, "I have to warn you right now, do not try this at home... you might not wake up!"

Photo by Advisory Council Member Saxon Holt

She reminds the audience of the

interaction with plants they encounter daily. "I bet all of you have already poisoned yourself with a small dose today," she says, asking the audience of their varying dependence on caffeine, which is a poison we enjoy in small doses. Scientists measure the 'fallibility' of a substance by the amount at which half the people who consume are dead. For coffee, it's 50 cups.

Stewart, a champion not of the deadliness of plants, but of their power in general, gives examples of health solutions from toxic plants. In Wyoming, researchers observed how goats that ate a certain plant in the nicotine family gave birth to broods with cleft palates. Rhode Island researchers were sent to operate on the pregnant goats, and developed a procedure for in utero correction that save the mother and baby, which can be translated to safe human operations.  

Stewart reveals how a propensity for 'rooting' for the bad guys developed as she wrote the book, hoping plants would be found the guilty culprit in murder cases and even unresolved mysteries like Jack the Ripper. A writer looking for a good story is the diagnosis here, rather than an ill-wisher, and the feeling is contagious. The audience begins to derive joy in learning the outcomes of deadly cases. For instance, common edible plants cause mayhem when consumed at unnatural rates. When corn was deemed a miracle crop and brought back to Europe from the America, the reliance on the food created a niacin deficiency in many diets and caused Pellagra throughout a certain population. Symptoms include blisters on the skin when exposed to sunlight, inability to sleep at night, and a ghostly, pale skin tone... "Anytime I can get vampires into a plant book, I'm gonna do it!" Stewart concludes. Applause. She brings the horror closer to home, south to Santa Cruz, where a young filmmaker observed populations of birds dropping dead from the sky after an algae outbreak in the Monterey Bay. "One of the greatest Hitchcock movies ever, and we have pond scum to thank for it!" Stewart exclaims. This was a good enough reason to include this invasive, where some did not make the cut. Another one she deems wicked is an invasive algae whose genetic structure is identical through out the world. It has never mated, it just reproduces...

After listing fatal human poisonings and mishaps, Stewart touches on a theme of the book that frequently gets her fan mail, and thank you notes: pets. She flipped to one of the cute images of fluffy, furry creatures emailed in droves on the Internet. "I know," she says, shaking her head at her own humor. "They're gonna die too!" She continues that people assume pets know what they can consume and what they can't; they don't. She urges people to know their pets. Are they nibblers? Two local natives are major culprits in sending pets over the edge: Sago Palm ingestion poisons gnawing dogs, and even the most well-arranged lily bouquet or potted Easter plant can cause a curious cat to have potentially fatal kidney failure within twenty four hours. She reminds the audience, "Just because a plant is sold as a house plant, don't assume it's good breakfast food for you." She lists Safe Sex in the Garden and Allergy-Free Gardening as resources for savvy growers. As she shows photos of her own attempts at growing a poison garden, she muses as to what her FBI file looks like right about now. "You can get a lot of interesting plants on ebay." She relays her conversations with her younger family members, whose knowledge of some hallucinatory plants extended beyond the California curriculum requirement.  "When your teenager starts showing an interest in horticulture... watch out!"

Recently, oleander soup played a role in a failed attempt at murder. The husband-victim was hospitalized for a week. Stewart noted that anti-freeze in the Gatorade eventually did the trick: cheers went up from the audience! "Ya'll are awesome," Stewart cooed to the crowd, who held the same notion of her.

If you missed this spectacular event, be sure to join us for Amy Stewart's return on October 6, as she turns her attention to Wicked Bugs. Tickets and information available here. Wicked Bugs available in the Gift Shop and online. Read Amy Stewart's interview about Wicked Bugs in the Chronicle.     

You are invited to the 1st Annual Cattleya Symposium, July 29 and July 30, in Fort Pierce, Florida. For a larger, PDF version of the invite, please click here: Cattleya Symposium. Learn more at odoms.com, and keep your eyes on your mailbox to learn more about our exciting Cattleya project in our summer print news!