NPR - 2009's Crop of Great Gardening Books
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"Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities" by Amy Stewart (Amazon.com:
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) "Consider yourself warned," writes Amy Stewart. "Within the plant kingdom lurk unfathomable evils." Bram Stoker meets Agatha Christie in this sophisticated little brew of botanical boogiemen. Fatal fungus, suicide trees and deadly nightshades are the characters in Stewart's cleverly designed overview of poisonous plants. A dead serious writer enchanted by "the plant kingdom's criminal element," Stewart's wonderfully illustrated book is less a warning than a history of plants that have, for millennia, insinuated their perilous tendrils into our unsuspecting lives.Book excerpt:
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