Saturday, March 3, 2012

Not a Serial Killer

I find myself spending a lot of time looking up poisonous plants. Because I'm a writer, not a serial killer. I'm fascinated at all the horrible ways a person can die just by ingesting the wrong brightly colored fruit or seed.

On the other hand, there are some things that I look at and think, "Well, duh! Of course it's poisonous, moron." But then again there are plenty of things we eat that I've always wondered about. Like who was the first person to decide to eat a crab? Or a sea urchin? Okay so most of them are seafood related. I love seafood, but let's be honest, none of that stuff really has an appearance that screams edible.

My favorite poisonous plant, that unfortunately for location purposes will not be staring in my next novel, has got to be Actaea pachypoda. Behold:


You know you wanna pull one of those juicy looking eyeballs off and eat 'em. That'll be what I serve at the Halloween party when I decide to kill everyone I know. So what happens if you're stupid enough to decide this looks like food? Toxins will slow down your heart leading to cardiac arrest and then death. Fun, huh?

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