Book Review: Wicked Plants

Creatively designed little books entice me the way picture books did when I was a child - there's something so deliciously satisfying about a book with enchanting pictures.  Wicked Plants  is a morbidly informative little book that I love but find a little unsettling detailing all sorts of poisonous plants from those used by the KGB (Castor bean) to those found at home (White Oleander).  

Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s most famous landscape architect and designer of Central Park, was nearly blinded by POISON SUMAC (Toxicodendron vernix).

This book is a compelling mix of botanical fact driven by interesting characters and intertwined with gorgeous etchings by Briony Morrow-Cribbs using a technique that dates back to the 1600s!  (more info). Working from life, photographs, and antique botanical illustrations, she sketched each of the forty plants in the book before etching them into the copper plates.  Amy Stewart has writen a number of other garden books, and if this one is any indication I think I will love them!

If you're still not convinced you can preview the book here
Available in the St. Catharines, Guelph, Hamilton and Toronto Public libraries under the call # 581.65 Ste