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Wicked Plants

The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities

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Wicked Plants

By: Amy Stewart
Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
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About this listen

Beware! The sordid lives of plants behaving badly. 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. Amy Stewart, best-selling author of Flower Confidential, takes on over 200 of Mother Nature's most appalling creations in an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.

Stewart renders a vivid portrait of evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, enlighten, and alarm even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.

©2009 Amy Stewart (P)2011 Tantor Agricultural & Food Sciences Animals Biological Sciences Environment Outdoors & Nature Science Heartfelt Plant Science

Critic reviews

"Culling legend and citing science, Stewart's fact-filled, A-Z compendium of nature's worst offenders offers practical and tantalizing composite views of toxic, irritating, prickly, and all-around ill-mannered plants." ( Booklist)
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The plus side: This is a short book packed with a brief overview of many botanical bad boys, snippets of interesting related historical anecdotes (infamous poisonings, uses of plants in ancient times, unfortunate mistakes). The tone is light and the reader fairly clear.

The downside: It didn’t work for me as an audio. It was very much a list with a lot of Latin names I couldn’t quite make out. With 60 chapters in a 4hr read it felt like a whirlwind trip - which I’m sure works on the written page better but was hard to take in on audio. I’d have preferred a different format - longer chapters on fewer plants, or related ones grouped together.

Interesting but frustrating

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