WEBVTT - What should you Plant in your Poisonous Garden? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.160 Guess what will what's that man? Go? Did you know 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:04.640 if there's a poison garden in northeastern England. It's a 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:08.840 full garden devoted exclusively to poisonous plants. It sounds so evil, 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:10.760 but I kind of love it. So what's the purpose 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:12.719 of this? So when I first read about the garden, 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.160 I imagine it had been there for like hundreds of years, 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.560 but it's only about twenty years old. A duchess inherited 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:20.799 the gardens and she wanted to do something super fun 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.040 with them, and she thought what could get kids more 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:26.040 interested than a garden where you're expressly forbidden from stopping 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.280 and smelling the flowers. So is it actually dangerous? Yeah? 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:31.680 It really is. So when I saw a picture of 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.040 some of the gardeners tending it, they were basically head 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:36.800 to toe and hazmat suits. They wear gloves to protect 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.479 their hands from boiling up, and they covered their bodies. 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.919 It's crazy, But hearing about the castle, which by the way, 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.839 actually served as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies, and 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.760 this whole poison garden, it made me realize I know 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.600 nothing about the secret world of dangerous and deceptive plants, 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:53.800 and so that's what today's show is all about. Why 0:00:53.800 --> 0:01:14.560 don't we dive in? Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:16.960 Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:19.520 joined by my good friend man Guestot Ticketers, and today 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.759 we're talking about some of the weirdest, funniest, most dangerous 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.320 plants out there. Kind of a field guide to plants 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:27.760 your mother wouldn't approve of. Now I go, are you 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.880 actually into plants? I mean not really? So I know 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:33.000 your wife knows a ton about nature and plants, and 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.960 she has an environmental science degree. And my grandfather was 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.880 a botanist and Forrester, so my mom knows a ton 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.160 about plants. But I know virtually nothing. It's like I've 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:44.720 tuned out everything they've been talking about all my life. 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:46.160 But you were the one that wanted to do this 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.240 episode so bad? What what? What was it that got 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.560 too intrigued? That's right. So our pal Austin helped me 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:53.480 research a bunch of plants for the episode. But I 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:55.600 think there are two things that really got me interested. 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.360 So the first was I read a little about Liz 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.080 Christie story. Do you know Liz Christie? Yeah, So in 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.480 the early seventies. Christie was this landscape painter in New 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.520 York City who saw these rundown neighborhoods supposedly as canvases 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:09.440 that she could play with. So she'd go into these 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.400 really rough areas with seed bombs. She'd like take a 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.720 water balloon and fill it with a mixture of seeds 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.280 and water and compost, and then she'd throw it into 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.639 these barren places in like the Bowery or whatever. And 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.720 it was kind of the first guerrilla gardening. I love 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:25.960 these sea grenades. I mean today they actually make them 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.200 with wildflowers. You can toss them into fields and watch 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.040 them attract honey bees or whatever. Yeah, it's funny. So 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.880 my dad's friend actually had a patent on sad that 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.240 you could roll out with wildflowers for the same purpose, 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:41.480 but it never caught on, unfortunately. But Liz Christie was amazing. 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.240 She did other things too, Like she'd sneak into these 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.440 rough areas with composts and tomato and cucumber plants and 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.600 wood and whatever, and she just build vegetable gardens where 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.760 she couldn't end. Slowly, the community started pitching in and 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.000 harvesting the vegetables. But when the authorities got wind of it, 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.800 they tried to stop it, but you know, Christie was 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:01.920 super savvy and she took her story to the press, 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:04.960 and eventually the city got on board. Like they started 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.680 leasing all these abandoned plots to community gardeners for a 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.280 dollar garden and offering seeds and tools for cheap and 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.800 the movement really took off. Like in the late eighties, 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.400 there were supposedly eight hundred community gardens in the city. 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.400 Eight hundred. I mean, that is an awesome story. So alright, so, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.359 so what does this have to do with dangerous plants? 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.320 I know? So I'm off to tangents immediately. And it 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.959 didn't take long ago. But I read a little about 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.840 Christie and her seed bombs and started thinking does nature 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:33.880 do this at all? And then I stumbled into a 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.640 book called Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart, which is so 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:38.840 good and I'm gonna be referencing it throughout the show. 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.360 But there's a chapter in it called Duck and Cover. 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.360 Duck and cover, Yeah, And the chapter is filled with 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:48.400 dangerous explosive plants like get this. So here's what Stewart 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:52.360 writes about the gorse bush quote on a hot day 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.520 sitting near a gors can be hazardous. The pods explode 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.320 without warning, ejecting seeds into the air with a noise 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.040 that sounds like a gunshot. This is basically a plant 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.040 that lures you in with flowers that smell like scented 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.000 coconuts or custard, but then it takes pot shots that 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.280 you when the weather is right. And there are others 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:10.240 like this too, like like the seeds of a dynamite 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.840 tree can shoot up to like three feet away, or 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.880 or there's a dwarf mistletoe, which is actually related to 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.840 the plant from Christmas time, the one everybody kisses under. Yeah, 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.839 so it can actually shoot seeds out at sixty miles 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:25.760 per hour. These plants are no joke. But the most 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.919 disgusting exploding plant I heard about the squirting cucumbers. Just 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.680 by its name, that sounds so gross. Is it shootout cucumbers? 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.800 It rapid fire or what what happens here? Yeah? What's 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.240 insane is that most of these plants are pretty closely 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.920 related to some normal plants. So the squirting cucumber is 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.360 actually related to cucumbers and gourds and squashes. It's like 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.160 in that general family. But it's so much grosser. And 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:51.960 at first I thought the squirting was about the wetness 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.239 shooting out, and it is. As Stewart writes, the plants 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.800 two inch long fruits are famous for bursting when right, 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.400 squirting a slimy mucus like use and seeds almost twenty 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.000 feet away. You've said, squirting too much, just starting to 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.120 gross me. And it sounds like a vegetable from like 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.880 Nickelodeon or something. I mean, the fact that it's slimy 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.320 makes it so much more gross, I know, But but 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.720 it's dangerous too. Apparently that veggie mucus will sting your 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:16.799 skin if it touches it, and it'll make you vomit 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.320 if you ingest it. But the worst thing about the 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.880 squirting cucumber if you accidentally ingested in a drink, like 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.400 if that mucus shoots twenty ft into your beer glass 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.880 or whatever, the squirting cucumber will give you the squirts. 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.240 I think we've talked enough about this one. I think 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.680 it's definitely worth avoiding. But honestly, I can see why 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:36.880 you're fascinated by this stuff. And when you told me 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.920 about this episode and the field guide idea, I was 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:41.920 thinking it'd be really fun to organize some of these 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.160 plants and the categories of kids you might want to 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.320 avoid on the playground. You know, there's those explosive types 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.080 definitely sound like the emotionally volatile kids you'd want to 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.080 tiptoe around. But why don't we start I don't know, 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:54.640 why don't we start with the pig pens. I mean, 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:56.599 I want some of that stinky stuff you can't help 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.800 but avoid. Yeah, the pig pens. I love it. So 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:01.640 let me just look through my notes because I know 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.760 what I wanted to talk about here. So I started 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.320 listing off a few favorites just because the smells are 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:08.240 so amazing, just in case you're like looking for a 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.680 new cologne or whatever. So the Stinky Gord smells like armpits. 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.800 That even has stinky in its name. Yeah, it's actually 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.400 called the Missouri Gord or the fetid Cord, but it 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.160 smells pretty bad. Then you've got the calorie pair, which 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.919 is this tree that smells like rotten fish and the 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.479 box would and when it gets too much sunshine, it 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.479 actually smells like cat pe Wow, which is kind of funny, right. 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:31.960 I Mean, I feel like so many of the facts 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.880 that you and I remember are about things that smell good, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:36.880 you know, like the bent a wrong. Is this half bear, 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:41.240 half cat looking thing that actually smells like buttered popcorn? Yeah, 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.640 I love that, But this shrub actually feels like it 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.240 belongs in a litter box. But to me, the greatest 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.560 pig pen of them all, the plant that most needs 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.160 a bath has to be the corpse flower. All right, 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:52.920 So I take that bent a wrong fact back, because 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.240 I know we have discussed the corpse flower in the 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.120 past that it's it's kind of like the rock star 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.160 plant for smelling so bad. I know, people travel, we'll 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:02.520 see it bloom, not just because of how bad it smells, 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.480 but also because it doesn't bloom that often. I think. 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:07.480 I remember, it's huge, right, is it like seven ft 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.720 tall or something. Yeah, it's kind of magnificently large and 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.520 also really putrid. And apparently when it blooms, the spadix, 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.840 which is this giant fleshy stem, heats up to about 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.840 ninety degrees to help cook up and spread that aroma. 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:23.200 And actually I wrote down some of the things the 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.520 corse flower supposedly smells like according to observers, So the 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.360 most common description is quote smells like death, which which 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.320 feels a little on the nose for something called the 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.520 corse flower. But if you've got a more discerning palette, 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:41.440 it might smell like well, rotting flesh, hot garbage, diapers, 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:48.280 rotten fish, cheese, smelly socks, and also cabbage cabbage, which 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.640 actually might be the worst smelling of all of those things. 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.000 And I love that humans are so curious about how 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.119 bad something smells. I mean, they immediately want to smell 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.320 it too. It kind of reminds me. You remember that 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.800 old Tom Hank sketch from S and All. He drinks 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:02.600 that sip of old milk and he's like, oh, this 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:04.760 is so terrible, we have to try it. The next 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:06.800 person comes over and tries it, says the same thing, 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.360 and they just keep smelling and eating these terrible things 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.400 because they just have to try it for themselves. But 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.720 we kind of do this naturally as humans for some reason. Yeah, 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:17.160 And to be clear, I have no interest in traveling 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.160 out of my way to smell a corpse flower. But 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.080 it also feels to me like the Harry Potter jelly beans, 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.720 you know, where they It could be delightful or disgusting, 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.280 and either way, people are happy to have tried to. 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:29.440 You know, my kids love those things. Oh mine too. 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.440 Some of them are so gross. There were a couple 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.920 I honestly could not eat. Speaking of Harry Potter, Actually 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:36.440 do want to talk about the man breaks and some 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:38.360 of the other stuff from the books that exist in 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.960 real life. But before we do that, can we do 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.160 a quick section on I don't know, let's call the 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.680 Eddie Haskell plants. Why Eddie Haskell? Well, these are the 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.520 plants that seem totally harmless and kind of like goody 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:53.000 two shoes, but can actually be bad influences. Yeah, there 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.240 there are a lot of plants. I didn't realize we're dangerous. 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.240 Like there's the Laurel hedges, which always seems so running 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:00.079 the mill to me. They're actually in that point is 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.280 in garden we talked about at the top. Apparently when 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:04.679 people trimmed the hedges and take the clippings to the dump, 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.640 they've fallen asleep behind the wheel from the fumes. Oh wow, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.400 All right, do you have anything that's maybe a little 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.400 more common than that though, Yeah, I've got a couple. 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.200 So rhubarb believes are apparently toxic. There's this terrific story 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.160 from a Great Britain in nineteen seventeen when a cook 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.280 used a recipe she found in the newspaper. It was 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.400 in this wartime tips column, and the combination of adding 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.560 baking soda to the rhubarb actually killed the minister she 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.839 was cooking for. It was super tragic. But apparently the 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.520 leaves can cause weakness and difficulty breathing on their own 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.680 and uh. And then there are things like cashews, you know, 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:37.880 but which I know you and I have talked about before. 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.400 But cashews, while they're totally delicious, the plant actually comes 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.120 from the same family as poison oak and ivy and 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.240 you actually have to steam them open to get to 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.400 the tasty truths. So even though you're getting them supposedly row, 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.120 they're actually coming to you a little cooked. But you know, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.920 Amy Stewart tells this horrible story of a little league 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.439 game in Pennsylvania where they sold some cashews that had 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.199 pieces of a shell in them, and this law huge 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.440 percentage of the little league parents ended up with rashes 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.000 on their arms and armpits and buttocks for the fruit. 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:07.240 I don't know. I don't know why buttocks these people 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.840 put in their cashews. But my favorite deceptively nice plant 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:15.560 that's actually not worth hanging out with. Celery. What's what's 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.520 so bad about celery? Well, nothing in small doses. But 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:20.200 if you eat a pound of it and then go 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:24.040 to a tanning salt, the celery will actually make you 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.080 extremely sensitive to UV light and it can pigment your 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.400 skin color and give you blisters. I mean, if you're 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:33.000 going tanning, go light on the cellery. It's really good advice. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.040 I'm glad we're here for our listeners, but that does 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:37.800 sound awful. All right, So we've done a few unhinged 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.920 plants that will pop off at you, some stinky plants 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.000 you'll probably know to avoid, and then those sneaky, silent 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.520 ones that are hiding a dark side. So how about 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.400 we save some of the liars, cheats and Harry Potter 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:58.200 plants for after a break. So at the top of 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.160 the show, we were talking about this incredib about Poisoned Garden, 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.480 and we're lucky today because we actually have the head 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.000 gardener at the Poisoned Garden. But Trevor Jones welcomed to 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.440 part time genius. Hello. All right, so one of our 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.360 favorite things is just the sign to the entrance that says, 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:18.120 these plants can kill and it's so ominous. What's the 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:20.280 philocity behind the garden and how do you choose what 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.440 plants go in there? The Duchess of Northumberland, who created 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.760 the hold of the garden, was fascinated with poisonous plants. 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.280 She felt that children these days tend to sit in 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.600 front of computer screens and look at them of our phones, 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.120 but never get out into the big wide world and 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.520 experience the environment that they're growing up in. So she 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.280 was aware that many children these days don't know the 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.760 harmful effects of plants, especially native plants that grow here 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.840 in the UK, but also some exotic ones, and so 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.120 part of the reasoning for the Poison Garden was to 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.559 capture the imagination of a child and teach them about 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.720 the harmful effects of plants and how they would all 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.480 kill you. So we have storytellers that build up a 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:07.320 huge drama before anybody actually enters, and you're warned not 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.440 to touch the plants, stand too close to them, smell them, 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.320 will definitely not taste them, because they all have the 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.120 ability to kill you. Well, speaking of children, I'm guessing 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.000 these plants are kind of like children, and that you 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:21.240 can't pick a favorite, but we're still going to ask 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.840 you anyway, do you have a favorite plant? There? I 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.600 like to tell the story of acrono item. It's a 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:30.480 cottage garden plant. It's her basis. It dives down the winter, 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.880 shoots up again in the spring, and it has fantastic, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.520 deep blue flowers. It's often called monkshood because the flower 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.520 looks like an old fashioned monkshood. Now, the whole of 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.120 that plant is poisonous, but we relate it to an 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.600 up to date murder story because in two thousands and ten, 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.160 a woman called lack Finder Singh who had fallen out 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.760 with her lover. He had kicked her out of the 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.760 home that they shared, so to get revenge on him, 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.800 she found some aconite the police seed, and she crushed 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.360 it up and then went back into the house and 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.800 third into his curry which was in the fridge. He 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.960 then returned home from work with his new girlfriend and 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.160 ad to curry, and he died within thirty six hours. 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.480 And when toxicology reports came back, they said that it 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.440 was all down to aconite and poisoning, and they chased 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.280 it back to luck Finder and she's now in prison. 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:27.480 So when did it occur to you that being a 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.880 poison gardener could be a real job. Well, I came 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:35.480 to Annick ten years ago and I've never heard about 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.280 a collection of poisonous plants, although I've been in gardening 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.400 all my days until I got to Annek and then 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:45.520 the fascination that is all about the Poison Garden started 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:47.520 to infect me as well, and so I was very 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.840 keen on poisonous plants. And I'm curious, how did the 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.240 Harry Potter movies filming there change admissions to the garden. 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.240 We've had a spinoff from how He Potter film because 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.080 in how He pos talked about Man Drake, and so 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.719 we grow Man Drake in the Poison Garden because there's 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.440 a lot of superstition around Man Drake. At one time 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.559 that was more prized than gold for its magical properties, 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.920 and even today people will buy mandrake roots and chop 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:16.400 them up. It's supposed to be a very good affle 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.240 dizzy act, but I can't guarantee you now. But there's 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.240 a lot of superstition about the plant. And the plant 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:27.640 has a very strong, thick cap roots very much like 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:32.360 a carrot, but it forks, so it's often have two 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:34.920 stems to it, so when it gets dug up, it 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.240 can often look like a little man with two legs 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.840 and two arms, and they say that it's the devil himself. 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.000 And if you dig a mandrake up, you can actually 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.720 hear it's screaming as it comes up out of the ground. 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.000 And then when you see it, it does look like 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.720 a little like a little man. And so if you 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.800 do that, you're cursed. So the stories goes. If you 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.000 want to get rid of your man drake used to 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:00.680 have to tie a rope around the manre it itself 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.480 and then around donkey or a dog. Kick the donkey 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:06.840 or the dog and they would run off and they 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.040 would pull an and rake up and as it screamed, 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.600 so they heard the screaming, they were the culprit because 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:14.760 they pulled it up. The donkey or the dog was 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.400 cursed and you survived to tell the tale. What's the 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.000 best thing you overhear the gardens? Like, what's the most 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.720 satisfying part of the job in the poison garden. It's 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:28.600 relating the stories that we tell to everyday occurrences we 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.920 grow in the poison garden. We grow just common laurel 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.560 and a lot of our visitors will grow low as 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.320 a hedge. It's very very common evergreen plant, but it 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:40.320 has the ability to kill you, believe it or not, 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:45.480 because the laurel leaves um produce cyanide. So when you 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.320 cut your laurel hedge, if you accept up the clippings 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.880 and put them into your car to take them to 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.000 the dump, as you sit in your car, so the 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.840 cyanide will start to build up in the car. That 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.480 then affects your nervous system and it's starts the brain 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.360 of oxygen. And so many people don't be like that, 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:05.320 and lots of our visitors have told us that they 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.680 have start exactly that they's driven to the dump with 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.040 these cuttings in the back of their car and they've 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.200 got very light headed and one gentleman he is admitted 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.280 to crashing into a lamp post. It was all down 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.720 to cyanide poisoning. What's Trevor, I can't wait to get 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:22.920 over to the gardens. This has been fascinating and thanks 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.520 so much for joining us on Part Time Genius. Well pleasure, 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:41.800 welcome back to Part Time Genius. Today we've been thumbing 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:43.880 our way through a field guide of plants. Your mother 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.880 wouldn't approve of I knew all this talk of plants 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.840 and poisons has reminded me of that Debora Bloom story 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:51.960 and the roots of c s I. You know, that's 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:53.880 actually one of my favorite stories. But would you mind 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.360 telling it to our listeners. So Debora Blooms, this wonderful 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.440 journalist who wrote The Poisoner's Handbook. But in it she 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.720 tells this great story from Belgium. It's about poisoning by 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.200 nicotine in the eighteen fifties. So basically at the time 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.600 no one knew how to detect plant alkaloids from dead bodies. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.400 And the way she tells that, there's a French prosecutor 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.920 and a famous death by morphine case, and he confirms 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.359 this in the trial and in the courtroom he said, 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:23.000 let us tell would be poisoners, use plant poisons, fear nothing. 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.720 Your crime will go unpunished. There's no physical evidence, it 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.600 cannot be found. I mean he was talking from a 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.960 point of frustration. But at least one person took his advice. 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:35.800 It was the Count of Boucarmi. So this is one 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.120 of those classic cases of people killing their relative for inheritance, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.520 and the Count and Countess lived extravagantly. They were basically 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.600 like the FitzGeralds of their time, throwing outrageous parties and 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:49.320 living beyond their means. So they needed more cash, and 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.760 they knew that when the count as sickly brother passed away, 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.280 they'd inherit his loot, But it turns out he wasn't 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.359 dying fast enough, so they decided to speed up the process. 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.000 So the count started experience ending with nicotine poisoning. He 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.520 had this converted laundry shaw that he turned into a 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.919 lab and claimed he was using it to mix up perfumes. 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.640 But when his servants peek in, he's extracting things from 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.480 plants and has vials and burners set up in there, 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.160 and suddenly tiny dead animals starts showing up left outside 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.520 the lab. I mean, they saw dead birds, rabbits and 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.960 several other animals, which was of course suspicious to them, 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.359 and so they take note of this. And then the 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.680 couple had their in law over for dinner, and there's 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.720 more suspicious stuff that happens. Then they send the kids 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.760 away for dinner to eat elsewhere, which is pretty unusual 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.800 for them. The Countess insists on ladling out the food 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.840 herself and distributing the plates herself and the servants are 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:44.920 pointedly sent away, and then during the course of the meal, 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.960 her brother passes out with a thud. The count and 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.040 countess claim it's a stroke, but something fishy has clearly happened, 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:54.560 and they rinse his throat with vinegar and burned the 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.880 dead man's clothes and basically get rid of all the evidence, 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.680 which sounds so shady, right, I know, But here's the 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.120 genius of it and why plant poisoning used to work 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.320 so well. The nicotine is made up of super simple 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:10.000 organic materials. It's just carbon and nitrogen and hydrogen and 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:11.879 you know, all the stuff that's in the air and 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.280 in our bodies. But it's also a super effective poison 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.320 that works astonishingly well and at high speeds when it's 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.600 in high doses. And so the servants report the case, 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.359 and the police knew who did it, but have zero proof. 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:29.200 Then Belgian's most famous chemist, Jeane sarves Stas, who spends 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.760 three months figuring out how to pull alkaloids from preserved tissues, 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:35.560 and he finally uses the proof to convince a judge 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.720 of their guilt, and the justice is swift, but The 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.960 crazy part is that while Stas's process has been updated, 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:46.560 according to Bloom, it's still used in toxicology labs today. Crazy. 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:48.399 It really is kind of the rut of CSID. But 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.720 what's the moral of all this? I guess the moral 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.280 would be, you know, don't use plants to murder your 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.080 friends and family. And maybe more than that, don't murder. 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.159 That would be that the moral don't murder does like 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.240 smart words to live by, and uh, you know what's funny. 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.880 Amy Stewart makes this point in the book that poisons 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.359 are all around us, like a lot of common house 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.680 plants are poisonous. The peace lily, the philodendron. I mean, 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:13.960