In 2005, the Duchess of Northumberland added 100 killer plants to Alnwick Garden, which runs as a charity and attracts 600,000 visitors a year in northwestern England. The Poison Garden idea came from watching children lose interest during tours of the six-hectare site on the Duke’s estate.
“Children love to hear about the gory side of the deaths of people who have eaten plants or been fed plants or injected themselves with plant material,” says Alnwick’s head gardener, Trevor Jones. “That’s what captures the imagination of a child, and if you can do that, then hopefully you get them hooked on gardening.”
Or maybe they’ll become writers of the macabre. Here’s what they might learn on a guided tour. (The garden opens for the season Feb. 4.)
Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) It’s generally considered a weed. If ingested, its roots or leaves can cause hallucinations, delirium, vomiting, convulsions or coma. When it flowers, its scent is so powerful that “people will faint when they get to a certain point in the poison garden, so much so that we now have a bench there so people can recover,” Jones says. “It gives off a very pungent smell and some people are very susceptible to it and pass out.”
Monkshood (Aconitum napellus) A popular perennial commonly found in gardens, and often sold without warning labels. Yet every part of it can kill. In 2004, a young Canadian actor, Andre Noble, died after eating it during a hike in Newfoundland. He mistook it for an edible herb. In 2010, a London woman was found guilty of murdering her ex-lover by sprinkling crushed Monkshood seeds in a curry. “People are still using plants to poison one another,” Jones notes. It’s the murder weapon of choice for Hannah McKay, a character in the hit series Dexter.
Angel’s trumpet (Brugmansia suaveolens) The whole plant is poisonous, especially its pollen. When ingested or inhaled it causes hallucinations, delirium and coma. But you go with a smile.
“It’s supposed to give you an aphrodisiac effect before you slip into a coma and eventually die,” Jones says. “Ladies of the night used to use this to great effect … They’d put the pollen of the flower into a drink. The client would drink and start to hallucinate, and then fall into a deep sleep and dream all sorts of wonderful dreams. The next morning he’d pay the money, thinking he had such a fantastic night, and yet he never actually touched the lady.”
Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) It grows around hedgerows and is considered a weed. The whole plant is toxic, and its shiny grape-like berries look especially tempting. Three are enough to kill a child, Jones says. The Italian meaning of its scientific name — beautiful lady — refers to Venetian women who once used drops of the berry juice to dilate their pupils, believing it made them more attractive. But one drop too many and they’d go blind. A former warden of the Poison Garden, John Robertson, writes: “In September 2012, a German monk, on a camping trip, ate some deadly nightshade berries after mistaking them for an edible fruit. He was discovered wandering naked by a hiker and rejected all attempts at assistance.”
Castor oil plant (Ricinus communis) A common garden plant, its seed is used to make the laxative. From the husk of the seed, deadly ricin powder can be produced. In 1978, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was killed when an agent suspected to be working for the KGB injected him with a ricin-laced pellet. Some believe the pellet was injected from an umbrella tip while Markov waited at a bus stop. “People get very frightened when they hear ricin. They think mass murder,” Jones says. But it’s a poor terrorist weapon because to kill, “it would have to be injected or forced into your body.”
Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) The plant is harmless. But morphine and heroin distilled from the sap of the poppy’s seed head capsule can kill. Morphine was the favourite weapon of British serial killer and family doctor Harold Shipman.
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