Plant lore
TOUCH-ME-NOTS
Mushrooms and Toadstools
All of them are potentially dangerous! Their identification is extremely tricky and the poisonous ones are deadly. The easiest one to identify is fly agaric. It looks like it was designed by Walt Disney. It is a day glow red orange with white spots. It is hallucinogenic and looks it.
Lately old established patches of edible mushrooms have been invaded by some of the most dangerous mushrooms, which just happen to look exacly the same. This has led to the death of quite a few mushroom experts in the last few years. The only time I’ve ever poisoned myself was with a really good omelet.
Castor
A large pretty shrub with very large, palmate leaves. Palmate means shaped like a hand. It can have a reddish copper color along with the green.
This plant has clusters of nuts about the size of a walnut with spikes. Through an extremely complicated process, these are used to make castor oil and Castrol© motor oil. They look like great fun to play with when they dry and are very decorative. There are usually 3 or 4 shiny black seeds in each nut.
These are extremely lethal. The active ingredient, ricine, was used by the military for chemical warfare. There is no antidote and no cure.
The whole plant can cause a nasty reaction in sensitive individuals and really should be only admired from a distance. Point to this plant and say “terminal diarrhea”. The kids will laugh, but they’ll remember it.
