Stewart's stories are posted throughout the show.

This is the first time the conservatory has created an exhibition from a book. 'I've rented more wrought iron than I feel comfortable saying.' Everyone said beer and buttermilk.' She lacquered the set with the concoction. To grow moss along the gargoyles and busts, 'I asked around. Using set pieces from an old James Bond movie found in conservatory storage, she reconstructed the back of a Victorian home. Hodges, 30, speaks quickly, exuberantly showing off her collection of props. The exhibition's theatrical effect is powerful. Today the focus is education and 'learning to respect the plant.' Hodges talks about the ethnobotany of 'Wicked Plants,' a responsibility to reimagine plants struggling to survive, fighting for life, 'willing to kill for it.' People should 'look at their houseplants with a little awe' after the show. 'There would be the bromeliad show, the orchid show,' Hodges shakes her head. Gone are the days of Society-led exhibitions. If this doesn't sound like the Conservatory of Flowers you knew, then you need to revisit. 'And she's finally done him in,' Hodges finishes. Slowly, you realize you've stumbled into his wife's secret poison garden. Through a window, make out a man slumped over his soup. Entering a decrepit overgrown garden, you see a Victorian house looming overhead. This talk will be accompanied by dazzling photographs, historical images, copper engravings, and other visuals as illustrations.Lau Hodges, director of operations and exhibits, has built a Conservatory of Flowers room you weren't meant to find. From strychnine to castor bean, from poison sumac to monkshood, from carnivorous plants to weeds that spontaneously combust, Stewart introduces an unforgettable cast of characters and tells their tales with her own wicked sense of humor. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, Stewart presents tales of bloodcurdling botany that will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.įind out which plant killed Abraham Lincoln's mother, which shrub ignited a global war, and which plant has killed 90 million people. It's an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.

In her New York Times bestseller Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities, Amy Stewart takes on Mother Nature's most appalling creations.

Wicked plants by amy stewart