Wicked Plants (21 page)

Nicotine is such a powerful neurotoxin that it’s used as an ingredient in insecticides. Ingesting a leaf is much more harmful than smoking a cigarette because a good deal of the nicotine in cigarettes is destroyed as the cigarette is burned. Nibbling just a few leaves, or making a tea out of the leaves, can quickly bring on stomach cramps, sweating, difficulty breathing, severe weakness, seizures, and death. Prolonged skin contact can also be dangerous: “green tobacco sickness” is an occupational hazard among fieldworkers who must walk through fields of wet tobacco plants in summer.

Nicotine is not the only weapon possessed by plants in this genus.
N. glauca
, or tree tobacco, grows to twenty-five feet tall and is widespread in California and throughout the Southwest. It is notable for the presence of another toxic alkaloid, anabasine. Ingestion of just a few leaves has caused paralysis and death. A man was found dead in a field in Texas several years ago; the cause of
death could not be determined until a mass spectrometry analysis showed the tree tobacco’s poison in his bloodstream.

In spite of its harmful effects, tobacco continues its death march. Enough cigarettes are produced every year to put a thousand smokes into the hands of every man, woman, and child in the world. Other offerings include snuff, chewing tobacco, and the traditional betel quid, which combines
Nicotiana
with another habit-forming plant, the betel nut. Among some Alaska native tribes, a product called punk ash, or
iqmik
, is popular; it is made by mixing tobacco with the ash of a burned mushroom that grows on birch trees. Some tribal members believe it to be safer than cigarettes because it is a “natural” product, and it is used by pregnant women and given to children and teething babies. However, the level of nicotine is much higher, and the ash helps deliver it straight to the brain, causing some public health officials to describe it as “freebasing nicotine.”

In India creamy snuff is popular among women. It is sold in a tube like toothpaste and contains not just tobacco, but also cloves, spearmint, and other tasty ingredients. The manufacturer recommends brushing with it morning and night, and “whenever you need,” including when you are “in a state of despair or depressed.” They suggest that you “let it linger before rinsing your mouth.” One satisfied customer testified that she used it eight to ten times a day.

Meet the Relatives
     This evil weed is a member of the nightshade family. Its more toxic relatives include datura, deadly nightshade, and henbane.

CYANOBACTERIA

Pond scum may not technically be a plant—this particular form of algae is actually classified as a bacterium—but this green creature found throughout the world poses a serious threat to humans and animals. Some species of cyanobacteria, otherwise known as toxic blue-green algae, can reproduce or “bloom” suddenly, releasing poisons into the water. People who drink the water or eat contaminated fish have experienced seizures, vomiting, fevers, paralysis, and death.

What causes an otherwise normal population of algae to bloom and release their poisons? Scientists are still figuring it out. Fertilizer runoff may play a role, giving the algae something to feed on. Warm temperatures and calm waters encourage the algae to grow, and poisonings do seem to occur more in warm climates during summer months.

Swimming in ponds, lakes, or rivers where algae is visible poses definite health risks. The algae release hepatoxins, which may cause liver failure, and neurotoxins, which may cause paralysis, along with other poisons that cause allergy-like reactions and damage to major organs.

One of the stranger toxins produced by algae is domoic acid. It can bring on gastrointestinal distress, dizziness, and amnesia. Domoic acid poisoning typically occurs when people eat shellfish that have fed off certain species of algae; the syndrome is known as amnesiac shellfish poisoning, or ASP. There is no treatment; so doctors provide whatever relief from symptoms they can and hope that patients recover.

An algae bloom in Brazil killed eighty-eight people and sickened thousands in 1988. Marine biologists in Los Angeles were overwhelmed with sick animals in 2007 when a toxic algae bloom caused sea lions and seals to wash up on the beach in convulsions. Several outbreaks in Australia have sickened people and livestock. But the most notorious incident of all was not understood until recently. In 1961 residents in Santa Cruz, California, awoke to the sound of birds slamming against their homes. Some locals rushed outside with flashlights, only to find dead birds in the street and disoriented, sickened gulls rushing straight at them, attracted by the light.

This story drew the attention of Alfred Hitchcock, who had considered basing a film on a Daphne du Maurier story called “The Birds.” Motivated by the real-life incident, Hitchcock got to work on the film. It took more than forty years for scientists to realize that the bizarre behavior of those seagulls was probably caused by a toxic algae bloom that poisoned anchovies the birds ate.

Meet the Relatives
     There are thousands of species of algae around the world, many of which are quite beneficial to marine life and humans. One of the best-known cyanobacteria is spirulina
(Arthrospira platensis)
, a popular health food supplement.

Any number of otherwise mild-mannered plants can, if provoked, forcibly eject seeds and scatter them at breakneck velocities. If you get one of these plants angry, back away. They could put your eye out—or worse.

A tropical tree that thrives in the West Indies and in Central and South America, reaching one hundred feet and sporting giant oval leaves, brilliant red flowers, and sharp spines. The sap is so caustic that it can kill fish or be used as an arrow poison. But you have the most to fear from the fruits, which explode with a loud bang when they are ripe. Its poisonous seeds can fly up to three hundred feet, earning it the nickname “dynamite tree.”

Flourishes on the English moor, where yellow flowers fill the air with a scent that some compare to custard or coconut. Native to Europe and invasive in some parts of the United States, gorse (also called whin or furze) welcomes fire into its dry branches. The flames cause seedpods to burst open, and rejuvenate the roots. On a hot day, sitting near a gorse can be hazardous: the pods explode without warning, ejecting seeds into the air with a noise that sounds like a gunshot.

A most unusual vegetable. While it is in the same family as cucumbers, squashes, and other gourds, it’s hardly something you’d want to add to your diet: the juice can cause vomiting and diarrhea if you swallow it and sting your skin if you come in contact with it. Its two-inch-long fruits are famous for bursting when ripe, squirting a slimy, mucuslike juice and seeds almost twenty feet away.

An Amazon jungle native that made its way to Europe courtesy of enterprising British plant explorers. Although uses for the sticky latex were not immediately apparent, chemists working in the 1800s quickly realized that the substance could be used to erase pencil lines, coat clothing to make them waterproof, and—thanks to some experimentation by an American named Goodyear—could even be used to make tires. In the wild the tree has another trick: its ripe fruits explode in the fall with a loud crack, sending cyanide-laden seeds several yards in all directions.

A beloved North American native that produces star-shaped yellow flowers in late autumn. The extract of the bark and leaves is used as an astringent to treat bites and bruises. The branches have been employed as divining rods to find underground sources of water or mines. In the fall, the dry, brown, acornlike seed capsules snap open and throw seeds up to thirty feet away.

A relative of the popular Christmastime mistletoe, is a parasite that sucks the life out of conifers in North America and Europe. Its fruit take over a year and a half to ripen, and when they do, the seeds blast off at the astonishing rate of sixty miles per hour—so fast that you might not even be able to see them fly by.

CICUTA SPP.

Widely regarded as one of the most dangerous plants in the United States, water hemlock flourishes in ditches, swamps, and meadows across the country, and its flat, umbrella-shaped clusters of white flowers and lacy foliage resemble that of its more edible relatives like coriander, parsnips, and carrots. In fact, most accidental poisonings from water hemlock come about because people mistakenly believe the roots are edible. Unfortunately, the roots have a slightly sweet taste that might encourage someone to take a second bite.

It only takes a nibble or two to get a lethal dose of the plant’s toxin, cicutoxin. It disrupts the central nervous system, and quickly brings on nausea, vomiting, and seizures. One small bite of the plant’s root, which is its most toxic part, could kill a child.

In the early 1990s two brothers on a hike mistook the plant for wild ginseng. One man took three bites and was dead within a few hours; the other took only one bite and suffered seizures and delirium but recovered after
a trip to the emergency room. In the 1930s a number of children were killed after making whistles or blow darts out of the plant’s hollow stems. Children have also mistaken the roots for carrots and gone into convulsions after a few bites.