The Big, Bad Book of Botany

by Michael Largo

  Southern Peru and northwest Bolivia grew domestic types of potatoes as early as 5000 B.C., and the crop was a main food source for the great Incan civilization. Today, according to United Nations estimates, worldwide production of potatoes is 330 million tons and growing!

  The edible part of the plant, its root, actually belongs botanically to the nightshade family, which has a number of highly toxic members. Above its tuberous bulb root, a leafy stalk grows to 24 inches high. It bears white, red, pink, blue, or purple flowers, depending on the variety. Insects are mainly responsible for pollinating potato plants, the most active being the bumblebee, though there is also a significant rate of self-fertilization. Potatoes can grow in vastly diverse soils, which factors as another of their many gifts as an indelible food source.

  The potato is an extremely important plant to the world economy. Amid the economic crisis in 2008, and as a preventive measure for possible world food problems, the United Nations declared 2008 as an International Year of the Potato. The agribusiness company Monsanto is a leader in creating genetically modified potatoes and all kinds of agriculture. Now there are many modified potato varieties that have been spliced with compounds from pesticides.

  Famine

  The Great Famine in Ireland in the nineteenth century is a prime example of how vital the potato is to human civilization. Back then, there was no diversity in potato strains, and farmers merely used one strain over and over again. Nevertheless, Europe, and Ireland in particular, had its entire crop infected with a disease—actually a fungus, Phytophthora infestans—named “late blight.” Millions starved, and millions more fled to the United States. (In South America, the people plant different varieties within a crop, depending on the soil and altitude.)

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  Spuds

  Etymologically, the word potato derives from the Spanish patata, which is considered a combination of the Taino word batata, meaning “sweet potato,” and the Quechua word papa. An English botanist from the sixteenth century had used the terms “virginal potatoes” and “bastard potatoes” to distinguish the sweet potato from what he had called the common potato. The name spud for a small species of potato derives from the name of a sixteenth-century tool used to dig a hole before planting potatoes.

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  PSILOCYBIN

  Psilocybe cubensis

  Magical Mushrooms

  Psilocybin, also known as psychedelic or “magic” mushrooms—or even simply as “shrooms”—are at once empowering, mystical, spiritual, recreational, and controversial, indeed dangerous. Some recommend them medicinally, while others have ruled them illegal. Mushrooms in this class all contain the psychoactive alkaloid psilocybin, present in about 40 species in genera such as Galerina, Copelandia, Mycena, Pluteus, and Pholiotina. There’s substantial archeological evidence that humans have used psychedelic mushrooms since prehistoric times, and they frequently appear in cave art in different locations around the world. Since they grow in many regions, it makes sense that many cultures have been using mystical mushrooms for their religious and spiritual ceremonies for ages. Today they are also very popular and many people have taken to using them recreationally for their intense psychedelic effects.

  Some of the most common effects of magical mushrooms if about 1 gram of dry mushroom is taken follow. Generally, one enjoys something resembling a spiritual experience, sometimes described as “sensing of God.” The experience is also referred to as “ego death.” Users claim they felt they were living in the “here and now”—a feeling of having no pain, no past, and no future, and just existing fully in the present. Mushrooms can produce an intense feeling of so-called uncensored perception—as if one is at last “seeing the real world.” The experience is surely a radical shift from the usual state of survival-laden consciousness, replete with anxieties and drives to get things done, avoid dangers, and fulfill needs; it induces instead a “let-it-go” sort of mind-set, where one feels nothing is important but being a part of the universe.

  But don’t have too many illusions that this experience will happen to the user every time, or even once. Many have experienced radical fears and paranoid states of mind after ingesting psilocybin. Which type of effect the user will experience is dependent on his or her psychological background, so one should be extra cautious, as some of these mystical mushrooms are more than dangerous. Amanita muscaria, in particular, has the ability to induce permanent psychosis. Some, however, have even claimed that Jesus himself used these mushrooms to enter trancelike states before he began his three-year ministry—though this is a view hardly shared by most Christians.

  On the medical front, studies have shown psilocybin mushrooms have the potential to resolve mental health issues such as obsessive-compulsive disorders and clinical depression in a way that is completely impossible for classical medicine to achieve or even understand. Nevertheless, the Imperial College in London claimed that under “proper” use psilocybin can act as an antidepressant. Moreover, some have begun investigations into using synthetic psilocybin not only for treating the most difficult mental health conditions but also for chronic cluster headaches.

  Modern Times

  Who else but Timothy Leary could have been the first to endorse the use of magical mushrooms in modern Western civilization (it makes some sense; he was also known to praise LSD)? Leary was inspired by an article in Life magazine from 1957, written by Valentina and Gordon Wasson, who were the first outsiders to participate in a traditional indigenous mushroom ceremony in Mexico. Leary, of course, traveled to Mexico to experience magical mushrooms firsthand. He returned to Harvard as a lecturer and researcher in 1960, but was dismissed in 1963, so he started propagating his psychedelic experience among the members of the hippie counterculture. The rest is history.

  Even in present times, some native groups in central Mexico (and others throughout the world, such as Mazatecs, Nahua, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs) still use psilocybin mushrooms for traditional purposes. One of the greatest insights in the world of mystical mushrooms is given in the literary works of writer Carlos Castaneda, who described his reason for using the plants: “The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.”

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  How to Make a Zombie

  Some plants are truly scary. They can turn people into real zombies. The name of such one plant says everything—Devil’s breath. It grows in Colombia and contains the extremely mentally unpleasant drug scopolamine. There are reported cases of people who used this plant being turned into beings completely lacking free will. Similar effects are produced by burundanga plant, another South American “devil,” able to wipe out the complete cognition of victims and make them unable to retain any information.

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  QUININE

  Cinchona officinalis

  Medicine Cabinet in a Tree

  In the case of the cinchona tree—its quinine-producing bark in particular—nature once again confirms the old adage that cures for many diseases grow right before our eyes, if only we’d look. Cinchona is one of the few species of the family Rubiaceae that produces the famous antifever agent quinine, which also cures malaria, saving the lives of millions. Nowadays, it is the Cinchona calisaya variation of this tree that is most cultivated for quinine; the quinidine alkaloid found in its bark also contains other medically beneficial compounds, including cinchonine and cinchonidine alkaloids.

  Carl Linnaeus named the genus in 1742, inspired by the Countess of Chinchón, the wife of Peru’s viceroy, in 1638. Apparently considered open-minded for the times, the countess learned of the tree’s medical benefits from native Quechua shamans and recommended it to her fellow colonists. However, even prior to that, records from the 1560s mention the miraculous healing properties of this tree. Jesuit missionaries introduced it as a “fever tree” in England in 1632. A Jesuit and naturalist, Bernabé Cobo, “discovered” it while exploring Mexico and Peru and then brought it to Spain and Italy. By the early nineteenth century, the tree bark�
�s popularity had become so well-known that Peru outlawed cinchona seed exports, hoping to retain a monopoly. Nevertheless, British and Dutch traders smuggled out seeds and cuttings of the cinchona tree, leading to its cultivation in many parts of tropical Asia.

  Botanically, Cinchona officinalis is an evergreen that grows as a small shrub or a tree, and can reach 16 to 49 feet tall, depending on the conditions. It has rounded to lanceolate leaves, ranging in length from 4 to 15 inches long. Its flowers grow in terminal panicles and come in white, pink, and red. The fruits actually look like oblong nuts and contain lots of seeds.

  Other medical uses of the cinchona tree include increasing the appetite, treating bloating, promoting the release of digestive juices, and treating different stomach problems. Many have found it useful for treating various blood vessel problems such as hemorrhoids, leg cramps, and varicose veins. Still others have used it to treat swine flu, influenza, the common cold, fevers, throat diseases, muscle cramps, and enlarged spleens. That’s not all: cinchona is also effective in eye lotions to numb pain and kill germs, and is used as an astringent. Even its extracts have found their way into treatments for baldness.

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  Like Cures Like

  The movement known as homeopathy started as a result of experiments with cinchona bark. Samuel Hahnemann, considered the father of homeopathy, had been translating Materia medica, a famous book on botany and herbs by William Cullen, when he noticed a curious section on what was called “Peruvian bark” and its ability to reduce fever. Hahnemann then conducted experiments on himself, taking large daily doses of the bark. After two weeks he felt some symptoms similar to those of malaria, though when he reduced the quantity his fever reduced. This led to the premise on which homeopathy is based: “like cures like.” In other words, treatments that cause a specific sort of illness in healthy people will cure the sick afflicted with the same disease.

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  RAGWEED

  Ambrosia artemisiifolia

  An American Allergen

  Each year, millions of Americans develop ragweed allergy symptoms during the fall, when this plant is a literal pollen-producing mega-machine. One of the reasons for its widespread effects is the plant’s great adaptability: it can grow nearly anywhere, and do so quickly. It grows along roadsides and riverbanks, and in other open spaces, which makes escaping from its vast, windborne pollen dispersal nearly impossible. Each plant boasts about a thousand male flowers, which can yield a billion pollen grains in total. If allergic, you can run, but you can’t hide—the pollen will find you.

  Ragweed is also known as common ragweed, of the genus Ambrosia and belonging to the sunflower family Asteraceae. Other names include bloodweed or bitterweed. The word ambrosia is believed to be derived from the ancient Greek term ambrosia, usually attributed to the special kind of drinks that the ancient gods on Mount Olympus sipped on their cloud cushions in the sky. Ragweed grows best in the temperate regions of South America and the Northern Hemisphere. It favors dry, sandy soils, or sunny, grassy plains, yet almost anywhere will do. There are 41 known varieties of ragweed throughout the world, many of them adapted to even arid climates and deserts. Most varieties are summer annual plants, 6 inches to 6 feet tall, and have egg-shaped long leaves. Its stems are green below the cotyledons—the first pair of leaves and seed clusters—after which the plant turns purple. Ragweed stems are straight and branched, with long, rough hairs, and they have a shallow taproot. Ragweed produces small green flowers, with both male and female flowers blooming on the same plant. Males usually bloom at the top, and then drop their pollen to the female flowers below. Its fruits are yellowish or reddish brown and less than inch long.

  Although it causes many of us to wheeze and sneeze, ragweed is a great source of food and cover for different wildlife. Eastern cottontail rabbits love to munch on ragweed, as do a number of different species of grasshoppers. Birds such as the junco, meadow vole, brown-headed cowbird, purple finch, northern bobwhite, American goldfinch, mourning dove, and red-bellied woodpecker seek this plant for nourishment, thus making it a significant contributor to the ecosystem.

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  Symptoms of ragweed allergy include watery eyes, sneezing, and swelling or itching of the tongue, the roof of the mouth, and the lips. However, these reactions can actually be avoided by eliminating the so-called trigger foods during ragweed pollination, including bananas, chamomile tea, cucumber, melons, and zucchini. The body thinks the proteins of the pollen are bad and kicks the immune system into action; these foods have similar proteins, and the combination can make one’s immune system go into overdrive.

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  Double Trouble

  Ragweed pollen is the subject of an interesting allegory. Some claim that while honey can help relieve allergy symptoms, certain types can actually make it worse. Although honeybees rarely visit ragweed, since its pollen is mostly dispersed by the wind, the bees do pick it up in their travels. Ragweed produces “clouds” of pollen around the area, and honeybees do get this abundant ragweed pollen attached to them. As such, honey produced during ragweed season can contain allergens that induce ragweed symptoms after ingestion.

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  RAT POISON PLANT

  Dichapetalum cymosum

  Who’s Killing the Cattle?

  This dangerous little plant kills not only rats, but also much bigger animals. It is considered among the “big six” plants most toxic to cattle in Africa, and is concentrated the most in South Africa, where it originated. Statistically it’s blamed for more than 8 percent of cases of poisoned cattle, most of which have occurred in Limpopo province. Sodium fluoroacetate is its main toxic element. The rat poison plant goes by many regional names—including gifblaar among Africans and poison leaf among Europeans.

  On the surface, Dichepetalum cymosum (family Dichapetalaceae) appears like a small, dwarf woody shrub, no more than 6 to 10 inches tall. Despite its small size, its root system is huge, similar in length and span to that of much larger trees. Its leaves are bright green, alternately spaced, and simple, with fine hairs that later become glabrous, or smooth. The flowers are white and small and grow in dense clumps during the early spring. Its fruits are rare; the plants go for long periods bearing nothing. The fruits are orange and leathery when they do appear, and they are not toxic, at least to the San people of Africa. The rat poison plant is a perennial species, preferring plateau woodlands and shrub savannas with open, grassy vegetation and rocky and sandy soils. When mature, the plant’s leaves appear to bulge.

  Cymosum leaves are toxic not only to cattle, but to sheep and goats as well, though these animals consume the poison much less frequently than cows do. The only possible explanation is that cattle have bulk grazing habits, or a less selective style of eating, while sheep and goats are more selective, or perhaps they are simply smarter. Most poisonings occur during the late winter, before spring rains, when the plants sprout; however, poisoning can also occur during the late season, in autumn. There have been cases of poisoned carnivores, including dogs that ate meat from poisoned cattle carcasses.

  Infected animals die from acute cardiac arrest, called chronic gifblaar poisoning. The poisoned animal first gets dyspnea (difficulty breathing) and arrhythmias, in addition to problematic neurological symptoms such as twitching, trembling, and convulsions. Death inevitably comes four to twenty-four hours after ingestion of cymosum. There are some rare cases in which animals initially survive eating cymosum leaves, but after a few months drop dead of heart failure.

  Some Good with the Bad

  There are a few mechanical methods of stopping the spread of these plants, but they are mostly ineffective because of the plant’s phenomenal root system. Cut the plant at the base and it comes back. Even so, this cattle killer has some positive aspects: its roots are effective against diarrhea and some liver-associated problems, when given as a cooled infusion. In addition, according to a journal article published by the American Chemical Society, th
e rat poison plant could have some use in AIDS therapy. Nothing is ever black-and-white in the complex schematic of nature.

  RATTAN

  Calameae

  Hard, Elastic, Useful, Punishing . . .

  This plant provides material to make shelters, furniture, and a wide array of helpful products. One can also earn a living and run a business from cultivating it. Indeed many people do so, and trade in rattan products is estimated at $4 billion a year and growing. There are many village communities in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos whose entire economy is centered on rattan production and derived products. The plant belongs to the palm family Calameae (or Palmae) and grows between sea level and an altitude of 3,000 feet. There are 13 genera and more than 600 species of rattan, most of which are native to the tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Australia. The commercially useful strains grow in hilly tropical areas, preferring an average temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit, with abundant rainfall. Consequently, the primary areas for rattan production are the tropical regions of South and Southeast Asia.

  Rattan palms have different shapes, including high or low climbers, and clustered or single-stemmed species. Some have very short and even underground stems, while some can reach 300 feet in length; however, all are only ½ inch in diameter, an elastic anatomical advantage that gives the palm its great versatility. Rattan is a very strong and adaptive species; its sheaths have spines for protection, along with “whip”-type shoots, which are also covered with spines. These are its hooks, of sorts, which play the main literally supporting role as the rattan grows and climbs and winds through and over trees and other plants in the jungle. In addition to lightness, durability, and flexibility, it’s also very easy to harvest and transport in comparison to heavier timbers. Harvest and preparation are often done right where they grow; farmers dry those with small diameters in the sun, smoking them afterward with sulfur; they boil large ones in oil before drying, in order to protect the crop from insects.