Amy Stewart

Growing up in Modesto, Ca. I was fascinated with the Oleander bushes dotting the median strip of highway 99. As I remember it, my mother had told me, “Never go near them!” At the young age of two-and-a-half I knew not to walk out in the road, so I asked the, “Why?” She said that they were poisonous, and then explained that poisonous meant get very sick.

This decorative plant will never find a spot in my garden. I saw White Oleander (film). All of its parts are poisonous and ingesting one little leaf could be a fatal dose. Symptoms are: nausea, vomiting, accelerated or retarded heartbeat, and cardiac arrest.

Other poisonous plants include: Primrose, Azalea, Holly, Daphne, Ivy, Peony, Lily of the Valley, and Daffodil. Chewing the leaves of the Coca plant will give a pleasant euphoria, but could lead to premature aging, physical and mental breakdown, and death.

None of this bothers Amy Stewart. She encourages wicked varieties of possible sickness and death in her Eureka, Ca. garden of Foxglove, Poppies, Castor Beans, and more.

Amy, the author, also cultivates minds with her books:

• From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden
• Flower Confidential: The Good the Bad and the Beautiful Business of Flowers.
• The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms
• Gilding the Lily: Inside the Cut Flower Industry
• Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities

Amy Stewart is in San Jose tonight.
Thursday, June 18, 6:30 PM
Wicked Plants lecture & slide show a free event.
Children’s Discovery Museum
80 Woz Way San Jose, CA
(408) 298-5437