The Big, Bad Book of Botany

by Michael Largo

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  Poison of Choice

  The known history of poisons goes back to 4500 B.C. Many different plants and mushrooms have been used to kill people (often kings) in silence and mystery. Rome was a real minefield of poisonings; emperors often used toxic plants to quietly kill enemies and rivals. Nero’s predecessor Claudius, for example, was said to be poisoned by his wife, Agrippina. The question is not whether she committed the crime, but rather what plant she used. Some think the aconite plant (believed to be able to kill even if only touched) was responsible, though still others implicate a mushroom like the death cap. Nero, unsurprisingly, possessed much knowledge of poisons, using many deadly herbs and mushrooms to kill unwanted family members. Historical rumors say Romanos II, the Byzantium emperor, was poisoned by his wife, Theophanos, who supposedly used a poisonous plant of unknown variety. The Umayyad caliph Umar II died after one of his serfs put a mushroom extract in his food.

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  DIVINER’S SAGE

  Salvia divinorum

  Mystery of the Deep Forest

  The diviner’s sage is another mysterious herb containing psychoactive chemicals. It is a popular plant for those who wish to experience “visions,” because of its hallucinatory and dissociative effects. It is also known as Ska Maria Pastora, or seer’s sage, and belongs to the genus Salvia, which includes nearly 900 species. Botanists, however, do not know whether it is a hybrid or a cultigen, adding to the mystery of this plant. The natural (endemic) habitat of diviner’s sage is the isolated cloud forest in Sierra Mazateca, Mexico, where it grows in hidden, shady places with high moisture. Mazatec shamans traditionally use it for religious practices (divinorum means “diviner”), but also as support for their healing séances.

  Self-Replicating

  Salvia divinorum is a type of semitropical sage. It grows from 3 to 9 feet tall with hollow stems and oval leaves (up to 9 inches long). It is emerald green with rare white flowers that have purplish calyxes. This plant prefers high altitudes (1,000 to 6,000 feet) and thrives amid evergreen forests with black soil, low light, and high humidity. The minty aroma of this herb is one of its key characterizations, since Salvia belongs to the mint family of Lamiaceae. Diviner’s sage is a semitropical perennial and can grow year after year if not exposed to frost. Once full-grown and nearing old age, it searches for a second chance at life by extending its branches to the soil, in hopes that it will break away and reroot. If only we could use this trick when our last days loomed near.

  Perhaps because of its self-replicating abilities, the plant rarely produces seeds. Even when humans assist its pollination, the fertility quality of the pollen is weak. Observations show that plants grown from seeds usually lack vigor, so this plant primarily reproduces through self-replication. However, growing Salvia divinorum indoors is often easier, as it is not climate-specific. Harvesting this plant is legal in most countries, but as with other psychoactive plants, overuse can be dangerous.

  Westerner’s Discovery

  Jean Basset Johnson first described the diviner’s sage in 1939 during his study of Mazatec shamanism. In the name of science, he consumed ample amounts of the herb and documented his personal testimonials under the plant’s influence. However, the psychoactive mechanism of Salvia divinorum was not identified until the 1990s, by Daniel Siebert and his team. They identified the strongest active hallucinogen of Salvia as salvinorin A, present in a dried plant at 0.18 percent. It is not toxic and does not cause organ damage, but it is a potent, natural hallucinogen. According to many who have tried this herb, common hallucinations include haunting demons, or even a person transforming into a demon to haunt someone else. Most agree that each trip is a unique experience.

  Many Names

  The Mazatec people of Mexico have no indigenous name for Salvia divinorum, but they strongly believe that the plant is an incarnation of the Virgin Mary. Names such as Ska Maria Pastora and Ska Pastora refer to “the leaf of herb of Mary, the Shepherdess.” Several Spanish names have similar references, such as Hierba Maria, La Maria, and Hojas de la Pastora. Mazatecs also call it hoja de la advinacion, or “leaf of prophecy.” Contemporary researchers, such as Gordon Wasson, claim that Salvia is probably the mythological pipiltzintzintli mentioned in Aztec writings as the “Noble Prince” of the plant world.

  DRAGONWORT

  Artemisia dracunculus

  Do Dragons Practice Aromatherapy?

  Dragonwort, or tarragon, is a polymorphic, perennial herb from the family Asteraceae. Some of the species in this family are used as culinary aromatizers, meant to add a scent to vegetables that have little odor. Others include French tarragon, Russian tarragon (which doesn’t lend itself as well to culinary use), and wild tarragon, which grows in many countries worldwide. Some sources trace the etymology of the term to the Persian word tarkhun. Dragonwort grows in organically rich, well-drained, dry to medium-moist soils with full sun exposure. It cannot survive in wet soil, and therefore thrives best in sheltered locations. This plant should be cut in early spring and declumped every third year to keep it robust.

  Artemisia dracunculus is native to temperate Asia, Europe, and western North America. It grows 4 to 6 inches in height, with branched stems and lanceolate leaves. These leaves have an intense, glossy, green color covering their perimeter. Flowers bloom in the summer, appearing in small capitulae, less than inch in size, bunched in groups of about forty greenish yellow florets. Some species of dragonwort produce seeds that frequently turn out to be sterile. To compensate, it reproduces via its rhizomatous roots, which shoot stems underground, sprouting new plants along the way.

  The Aromatic Medicine

  Tarragon’s aroma is reminiscent of anise, and like this herb, it also contains estragole. In addition to its culinary usefulness, tarragon also has a few esoteric medical benefits, like its supposed ability to cure hiccups. In aromatherapy, three or four drops of dragonwort’s essential oil, combined with a heated lump of sugar, produce a soothing aroma. Dragonwort appears mostly in herb gardens but can also grow successfully in window boxes or containers. Many find it suitable for ornamental planting.

  Two other species that are similar to Artemisia dracunculus are Dracunculus vulgaris (or dragon arum), a flowering plant from the Araceae family, and Arisaema dracontium (or green dragon), an herbaceous perennial originating from North America. The dragon part of its name is derived from the Latin dracunculum. However, it is uncertain why dragons are meant to symbolize this plant, given that it does not resemble common dragon imagery whatsoever. However, a clue lies in ancient folklore, which tells of the herb’s use in recipes concocted to repel dragons. Apparently dragons don’t like aromatherapy.

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  Traditional Culinary Use

  Artemisia dracunculus is considered one of the four most important herbs in French cuisine. It is used in preparing fish, chicken, and eggs and is the main flavoring element of the famous Béarnaise sauce. In Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, it is used to flavor the traditional soft drink, tarhun. Russians, Ukrainians, and Kazakhs also enjoy this soft drink and believe it to be healthful. In Slovenia, the recipe for a traditional cake, potica, calls for dragonwort as its main spice, and Hungarians use the leaves to flavor their most popular chicken soup.

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  EGGPLANT

  Solanum melongena

  Teaching Patience

  Found by the earliest inhabitants of India, the first eggplants were smaller than the globe-shaped fruit we know today. Belonging to the often-deadly nightshade family, it’s the eggplant’s flower that is poisonous. These toxins occur in the fleshy seedpod as well, but they dissipate with maturity. The size of the first eggplants (also known as guinea squash, aubergine, or mad apple) is lost to botanical antiquity, though we know it was still a palatable food prepared by earlier people using numerous means. It was among the first wild plants to be actively cultivated into different varieties. The plant grows to about 2 feet in height, blooms a purpli
sh flower (depending on the strain), and can produce a half dozen or more of its 8-inch-long, bottom-heavy vegetables from its somewhat woody stem.

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  Fruit or Vegetable?

  To the botanist, nothing is a vegetable. Even the eggplant, something nearly every chef and home cook would decidedly call a vegetable, is in scientific terms the seed (really the ovary) of a flowering plant. You say “tomato” or “tomahto,” or “potato” or “potahto” (which, incidentally, are both related to the eggplant), but to the plantanical purist, an eggplant is literally the plant’s fruit. In technically precise terms, the eggplant is a berry-bearing herbaceous plant, meaning that its stem and leaves die and wither at the end of a season, once its seeds are given a good send-off. The eggplant was serious about making its ovary desirable. A toxin in its flower ensures the plant won’t be eaten during growth, making potential consumers wait until its tasty seedpod is big and fat—a real strategic achievement in the competitive world of seed dispersal.

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  ELDERFLOWER

  Sambucus

  For the Body and Soul

  Elderflower is part of the honeysuckle family, with 20 different species growing in temperate and subtropical zones. They are usually small shrubs, but when nurtured some have grown 20 feet in height. Their white flowers rise in ornamental clusters, like a ready-made bouquet. Though a delicacy of sweetness, an elderflower doesn’t bother dissuading predators from destroying its flowers, as it blooms so quickly and produces seeds at such a rapid pace.

  Humans prize the elder’s berries, which give a potent dose of tasty sugars. The blackish blue (occasionally red) berries are well suited for use in jams, juices, and pastries. Both the flowers and berries are edible, but the berries have to be cooked. They are poisonous raw. The flowers, when distilled, make a sugary drink, which can be imbibed straight, made as a tea, or turned into wines and cordials. Sambuca, a favorite Italian liqueur, is made from the plant’s flowers. Even yogurts and certain brands of marshmallows use the flower’s nectar as an ingredient, which is so versatile that certain mouthwashes have it in their formula. Who knows, maybe the first cavemen took a swig of it before courting! Fossilized remnants of the plant have been discovered in numerous Stone Age excavation sites, showing elderflowers were apparently used for multiple purposes. Ancient medical books cite it as a cure for numerous ailments, like excessive sweating or coughing fits, and it is still used in liquid drops for red eyes. Its bark and stems are not often sold raw, as these can be dangerous if misused.

  The plant’s scientific name is taken from the writings of Pliny, a first-century Roman naturalist and cataloger. Before the discovery of its many food and medicinal uses, its hollow stems were used to make natural flutes, called sackbuts, which many a lonely shepherd learned to play. Like the peaceful melodies of a flute, many hail the elderflower as good for both body and soul.

  People have long loved the elder for its beauty and host of benefits. Naturally, superstitions grew around the plant; for example, if someone dared to kill one of the stouter varieties to make furniture, the chair or table fashioned from its timber would seek revenge. A chair might fling itself across the room or move about on its own and haunt the home’s residents for abetting the plant’s destruction. In Christian mythology, Judas chooses to hang himself from the branches of an elder tree—perhaps as a last symbolic plea for mercy or kindness.

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  The elder part of the plant’s English name has nothing to do with the plant’s age, but meant that it was good to use to start fires. Elder is a derivative of an Anglo-Saxon word for kindling.

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  ELM

  Ulmus

  The Liberty Tree

  The elm is probably one of the most painted trees in the world. You will find this graceful tree with sensitive foliage within the landscapes of master painters such as Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, George Innes, John Constable, Childe Hassam, and Karel Klinkenberg, and of countless practicing artists, all inspired by the elm’s appearance. It wasn’t only aesthetics that attracted artists to elms, though. The tree has a rich mythology in literature and art, though it is also simply planted for its beauty and great economical value. Elm has long been the preferred timber for fine furniture, wagon wheels, chairs, coffins, keels for old wooden ships, and strong longbows.

  Multi-Useful

  Other uses of the elm tree include medicinal ones. The tree’s inner bark, especially, is used for a skin salve and as a nutritional supplement. Its leaves are cultivated and harvested and used as livestock fodder. The tree’s seeds are also nutritious, containing 45 percent crude protein and about 7 percent fiber. Europeans have long acknowledged the tree’s nutritional value. In 1812, the bark of the elm saved the Norwegian people from a famine and starvation.

  Belonging to the genus Ulmus, family Ulmaceae, elms are deciduous and lose their leaves each year. The tree’s genus first appeared about twenty million years ago, in the Miocene period. Its origins were in today’s Central Asia, but it spread and flourished in the temperate climates of the Northern Hemisphere, Eurasia, and Indonesia. Elms are found in many types of natural forests. In the late 1900s they became a favorite ornamental tree for streets, parks, and gardens, both in Europe and North America.

  The tree can grow to heights of 70 to 90 feet, with branches spreading to widths of 40 to 70 feet. Some elms live a long time, more than two hundred years. Elm leaves have alternating shapes, with either single or double jagged or serrated edges. It is a hermaphroditic genus with perfect petalous flowers, pollinated mostly by wind and bees. Elm fruits are round, rich with chlorophyll, and spread primarily by wind. The tree is tolerant to a wide range of soils and pH levels, though it demands good drainage. In 1997, the European Union started the Elm Project, aiming to conserve all of the elm’s genetic resources and to strengthen its resistance to Dutch elm disease, which has devastated the species for many decades.

  The elm became a symbol of freedom and victory. For example, after the final victory of the parliamentarians over the monarchists during England’s Glorious Revolution in 1688, planting elms was considered a fashion among the supporters of the new order. In the United States the tree also became a powerful political symbol. The famous “Liberty Tree” of the American Revolution was a white elm from Boston, in front of which the first resistance meetings were held in 1765. The British tried to cut it down in 1775 but were prevented from doing so. Later, it became an established tradition for all American presidents to plant an elm. The French Revolution also used Les arbres de la liberté (Liberty Trees), most often elms, as symbols of their revolutionary battles and hopes, inspired by the Boston elm. The famous Elm of La Madeleine, planted in France in 1790, survives to this day. It was this revolutionary moment that probably inspired so many painters to use elms as symbols of freedom. Such trees shouldn’t be cut down or killed by anyone.

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  Elm Mythology

  When the hero Orpheus from Greek mythology rescued his beloved Eurydice from the underworld, he paused to play a love song for her. As a result, the first elm grove grew instantly on the spot. In Homer’s Iliad, mountain nymphs planted an elm over the tomb of the father of Andromache. Elms were often mentioned in pastoral poetry as symbols of idyllic life. The Celtic people believed elms were protectors from the underworld and planted the trees to guard burial mounds and aid the dead during their passage into the other world.

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  ERGOT

  Claviceps purpurea

  St. Anthony’s Fire

  St. Anthony’s fire is a name once given to a fungus, known today as ergot, that grows on rye and other grain-producing plants. In human beings and other mammals this can cause St. Anthony’s fire disease, also known as ergotism. The fungus generally affects oats, rye, wheat, and barley, which can quickly spread the disease among human populations.

  St. Anthony’s fire disease has killed millions throughout agricultural history. In A.D. 1000, an order of monks called
the Order of St. Anthony was formed and trained to treat the disease. In the Middle Ages, these monks built and operated the world’s first hospital system, the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony. They eventually opened more than 350 facilities throughout Europe, specifically created to combat the terrible blight. The monks used balms that tranquilized and improved the circulation to aid the immune system in detoxification. Patients suffering from the infection experienced severe skin rashes, including deep burning sensations in the limbs. Sometimes patients even lost their limbs because of restricted circulation of the blood.

  The alkaloids that the fungus produces can cause hallucinations, irrational and unconventional behavior, convulsions, and an untimely demise. Other symptoms after consumption of ergot-contaminated grains include strong uterine contractions, sudden unconsciousness, nausea, and seizures.

  The medicine ergometrine is used to induce uterine contractions. Similarly, when ergot is taken as a medicine after skillful preparation it can induce abortion without killing the mother. It helps control maternal bleeding that can occur after childbirth as well as other hemorrhages. In products like “Cafergot” (a proprietary medicine with the ingredients ergotamine, tartrate, and caffeine), ergot is added to the mix to help with cluster headaches.

  Ergotamine found in the plant affects muscle fibers. When taken in large doses, it can paralyze nerve endings. If a person consumes too much ergot, he or she will likely suffer from St. Anthony’s fire disease. To prevent infection, make sure baked foods are made from inspected flour supplies.