My faithful readers are aware of my desire for things to be named as they are. It avoids confusion, and life is too short to be dazed and confused. So when I read about Cerbera odollam, the “Suicide Tree,” I get a warm, tingly feeling. Not because I’m some sort of sociopath, well, maybe just … Continue reading
A mystery writer friend asked me about oleander, the evergreen shrub that thrives throughout the southern United States, a little while back. Being the smart-ass that I am, I asked her who she was planning to kill and she said a dog. What, what, what? Relax, it’s a dog in the mystery novel she’s writing. … Continue reading
“The use of foxglove is getting abroad, and it is better the world should derive some instruction, however imperfect, from my experience, than that the lives of men should be hazarded by unguarded exhibition, or that a medicine of so much efficacy should be condemned and rejected as dangerous and unmanageable” This is from the … Continue reading
Nature's Poisons 