Amy Stewart's
"Wicked Plants"
"Wicked Plants" is a very different book from "Flower Confidential" where Amy Stewart wrote so fondly and tenderly (even while being objective and critical) of the flower industry. "Wicked Plants" is an absolute rogues gallery of our public plant enemies: a line up of our most difficult neighbors.
"Wicked Plants" is filled with historical anecdotes, but this is not a story of plants "down through the ages." That would imply some horrors of the past. None of these plants is extinct. They wait out there, right now, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting (ok, only some of them pounce, but you get the picture.)
Here they all are in a lineup from Aconite through Yew (or is it Eww?); from the dangerous to the illegal; from the weed that killed Lincoln's Mother to Hannibal's chemical warfare.
This book is not intended as a field guide, but an entertaining and educational read for plant lovers (or is it haters?) It lacks an index which would have been nice so we could find out all the places that carrots are mentioned. Carrots? Carrots are mentioned as wicked plants? Yes! And corn and rhubarb!
Read it and weed.
Read about EmilyCompost's Wicked Plants