But even if that’s not normally a topic you’re passionate about, there are enough amusing and intriguing facts in Botanical Curses and Poisons to please a crowd.

Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow Lives of Plants Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow Lives of Plants

Gamers never feel more present and alive than when their efforts come to fruition; GMs will weave crooked quests concerning the gathering of ingredients for poisons or curatives, players will brew concoctions of deadly verdance for the sake of good or ill. If you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. It’s full of fun facts - some of which are only barely tangential to the plants but show amazing depth: “do not suffer a witch…” is an abusive overreach in translation of the original Torah! Like how bluebells were associated with sleep and magic that causes sleep in multiple cultures, probably because they contain scillaren, a chemical that lowers the pulse and causes heartbeat irregularities.Some of these things I already knew, but even in the plants I read about that I thought I knew about, I learned unexpected things, whether it was mythology or historical usage or maybe a bit of both.

Botanical Curses and Poisons - AbeBooks Botanical Curses and Poisons - AbeBooks

The content was really cool at times—fairies, witches, rituals—but also boring because it’s also filled with unknown plants that the knowledge of which doesn’t suit me.However, I think print suits this book better than audio, as that way you can use it as a reference book. Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow-Lives of Plants was a wonderful blend of folklore, facts and coziness. Each card carries two meanings; one for times when moving forward is important, and one to help cultivate your own wellbeing. I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief list of botanical gothic books to get you started exploring this horrifying, yet alluring, genre. Particularly as an avid reader of Historical Fiction there is so much here that I found so compelling; opium use in Victorian England, which has been mentioned in several of my recent Historical Fiction choices, herbalism and the persecution of witches.

Review: Botanical Curses and Poisons – A Cat, A Book, and A Review: Botanical Curses and Poisons – A Cat, A Book, and A

This book is beyond beautiful, and really just looks like an ancient manuscript filled with terrible secrets.I found it incredibly interesting that "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" was actually mistranslated and should have been "poisoner. Fez Inkwright is an illustrator and author with a passion and knowledge of botany, nature, primitive religions, and folklore. Each entry starts with an excerpt from poetry or literature that references the plant, and most also include a beautiful and delicate ink drawing of what it looks like. Going from A to Z, she covers everything from apple (think of the poisoned fruit in 'Snow White') and the hallucinogenic angels trumpet to laurel, which emits toxic fumes, to oleander (a deadly ornamental shrub), with each plant beautifully illustrated by the author herself, making it a spellbinding spell book and a feast for the eyes. One of my favorite examples of that is Devil’s Bit, named because the highly medicinal roots were also abnormally short, leading people to believe that the devil “bit” off the rest of the roots so less medicine could be made from them.