Wicked Plants

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

By: Amy Stewart

Narrated by: Coleen Marlo

Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

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

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)

Informative

I highly recommend reading the book before you plant in your garden in case of harmful plant interaction.

Is reader mechanical?

While good info and well researched, it is quite dry. It is surely educational for the people interested in plants.

A dictionary of scary plants

This is not a book for plant lovers who enjoy celebrating nature by reading sympathetic and personal relationships with flora such as the works of Michael Pollan or "Weeds" by Richard Mabey. It is simply a compilation of brief descriptions of plants that are harmful to people, their economy or pets. The personal and social notes accompanying the often scary facts appear to be more in service of accentuating the shock value than in in elucidating the natural or social history of the plant in question.

On the other hand, It does cover a wide range of plants throughout the word and provides the botanical names for each species, which is very useful if you want to seek more information about the plant. After listening to the audiobook I ordered a hard copy as a reference book, but it's not on my night table.

A good reference

reference, botany, gardening, poisons

A calculated and well researched compendium of poisonous and questionable botanical plants including anecdotal bits about each one and its plant relatives. With some the lethal aspects are in the dosing but with others that isn't true. The plan of chapters is a bit mystifying, but overall it is a reference book with reality tales.
Coleen Marlo does a creditable job as narrator.

The sum is less than the total of its parts

This book needs to either be revised and edited for audio or have a PDF to download that visually show the chapter and a brief summary of the plants in that chapter.

The book by it's design is more of a reference book broken up by topic and so a lot of information overlaps... which is fine, but in audio form it gets monotonous to hear the same information over and over again with no reasonable way to skip to the good parts. An audio version of a reference book should be light and airy by chapter and topic, focusing more on the stories and takeaways rather than the Latin, aliases and definitions. The end of the book could be a little bit more encyclopedic.

But I would've been happy if they just included a PDF outline of the book. Because as painful as it way to listen to at times (again not because of the content or the narrator), I did get a lot of good information out of the book and would love to get that info again without having to slog through the audio.

Not for audio

I can see how this could be a very interesting book in a book form. As something to listen to it just doesn't work. The narrator is talking to fast and doesn't pause where a pause would help. It is very data dense and the same plant is talked about in a couple places at times and as a book you could go back to it and pull it together.
It would make a very interesting reference book but needs to be a book or have more story about how the plant impacts things to be a good audio book.

Interesting but..

This book is would be a great reference book but in audible form it’s just not that useful. It is interesting however and the narrator does a good job.

Not written to be an audiobook

I have friends that read this book and loved it but its reference style formatting just doesn't Male sense for audio.

Should have been interesting, but…

This should have been an interesting listen. Instead, I got so bored, even though I’m interested in the topic. I eventually gave up after chapter 6.

Grows on You Like Kudzu

Amy Stewart just published the already much referenced “The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World’s Great Drinks” (2013).” I knew when I finished “The Drunken Botanist” I’d never settle for a badly made cocktail. Just yesterday, I was annoyed to see a “martini” menu at a well known chain restaurant (whose name resembles The Cheesecake Factory) listing only “vodka martinis”. Thanks to Stewart’s help, I made sure I got a real martini – made with gin.

“Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities” (2009) is much shorter than “The Drunken Botanist”, and not quite as fun. There are no drink recipes in this one, but plenty of advice on what NOT to eat or drink.

In Stewart’s hands, each ‘wicked plant’ takes on a distinct personality. Some are bullying newcomers, like Japanese-native kudzu, which was imported for erosion control but is invading the American south. Some plants are deceptive, like foxglove. Used correctly, it produces the life saving digitalis. Used incorrectly, foxglove kills. It turns out the ubiquitous but much-maligned poinsettia plant is an irritant, not a poison.

I realized – and was quite disconcerted – that I am surrounded by poisonous plants. There are beautiful but poisonous oleander trees in my yard, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen hemlock in my yard, and, thinking back on it – as much as I loved pulling up and eating raw rhubarb as a child, I’m very lucky I’m here.

“Wicked Plants”, like Stewart’s “Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon’s Army and Other Diabolical Insects” (2011), is an A to Z encyclopedia of the bad boys of the natural world.

I wondered if I might have been better off with “Wicked Plants” in print so that I could see what Stewart was describing. I thought about it, and realized that if I had done that, I wouldn’t have had Colleen Marlo’s narration to tell me how to pronounce the names.

I’m not sure that I’ll buy “Wicked Plants” in text (I will buy “The Drunken Botanist” on paper for the recipes!), but it was definitely worth the listen.

[If you found this review helpful, please let me know by hitting the 'helpful' button! Thanks.]