DEADLY PLANTS

Welcome to our first installment of Axioms with Barry! These posts will be dedicated to useless trivia. An axiom is an inherent, self-evident truth, and it is my goal to make trivia as true as any well known fact. Rather than listing facts, I prefer to write about them in humorous and interesting ways. I hope you enjoy!

Have you heard of deadly nightshade, aka belladonna? It was used in the popular 1993 movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. I saw this plant once while I was volunteering to clean up a nature preserve. Fifteen to twenty berries or just one to three leaves can kill an adult human. The root is even more deadly. Hence the name, deadly nightshade. Strangely, it is also fatal to dogs and cats, but not other wild animals, such as goats and llamas.

Speaking of plants that kill (don’t you just love this topic?), did you also know that the plant of the potato is deadly? We can only eat the root (known as the “potato”), but the plant that grows out of the ground is quite fatal. The toxin is also found in the actual potato root, but it is concentrated in the stem and leaves of the plant. This begs the question, how did we first find out that the plant was deadly?

It makes me think of the following hypothetical: Once Jebediah ate the potato plant and died, one would be wise not to try to eat it again. However, who was the person who decided to eat the root, knowing that the plant was deadly? Did they give it to the village idiot, Ezekial? When he ate it and didn’t die, they realized that it was edible. Then they found out that they could smash it together with a rather unattractive, bulbous plant with a pungent odor (later known as “garlic”) to form a delicious meal or side dish. These are the questions that keep me up at night…..

Deadly nightshade and potatoes belong to the nightshades, or Solanaceae, family. Other members include mandragora (commonly referred to as mandrake). You may remember the screaming mandrake root from Harry Potter. Athough, in real life they don’t scream, they just kill you!

Well that is all the time we have today. We learned some new things, cried over the loss of Jebediah, and shared some laughs. Next time we will learn about how much it costs for a theatre (yes, I used the Old English spelling!) to make popcorn, compared to how much they charge. Thank you and I bid you adieu!!!