Five plants that can kill

AND WE DON’T GROW THEM!

ONE:
Deadly Nightshade (Atropa belladonna)
This native of central and southern Eurasia has dark ovate leaves and produces dark blackberries.
Full of atropine and scopolamine from the root tip to the leaf end, consuming any part of this plant will cause your involuntary muscles of the body to paralyse - think heart, lungs. Even rubbing against this plant will create skin irritation.
Atropa belladonna is not present in Australia.

TWO:
Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima)
A North American herb that produces umbels of flat-topped clusters of white flowers, that produces a toxin called trematol.

Abraham Lincoln’s mother, Mary Hanks died from ingesting this poison, not directly for eating the plant., but from drinking the milk from a dairy cow that had grazed on the plant.

THREE:
Rosary Pea (Abrus precarious)
Native to India, a legumes tropical plant that is weedy and very invasive
As you may have picked up from its common name the hardened and dried pea was used by jewellers to make amongst other things, was strings of rosary beads.
Chewing or ingesting this seed is toxic however a tea made from the leaves is used for fevers, coughs and colds by the Tamil Sidhars of India, We’ll take a Lemsip thanks!

FOUR:
The Triffid (Triffid wyndhamii)
A very large, venomous, and carnivorous plant, that is capable of locomotion and communication. The Triffid has a large and readily identifiable fleshy bulbous basal growth, with an extensive epiphytic root system.  It produces a tall wide throated salmon coloured flower, with internal flecking on the throat.
The Triffid will squirt poison directly into it’s victim’s eyes from a long tapering stigma that protrudes from the flower.
The toxin creates blindness then muscle paralysis, the Triffid will lower its open-throated flower to slowly consume the paralysed human or animal, swallowing it down in a pool of acidic juices where it will rot and decompose.

FIVE :
The Coal Plant
This plant can and does, kills us and the environment.