Plants That Kill: A Natural History of the World's Most Poisonous Plants

I love the way it's organized by mechanism of action. I think it's a good informative book, and between this and my book on edible plants I feel like I might not poison myself if I ever take up foraging.

Absolutely gorgeous book, I bought it as a birthday present for my husband and he loves it. The quality is great, it's bigger than I expected, which I love. The pages feel nice and the pictures are great. It's very informative, and I love how scientific it gets (but in an easy to understand way - it's not dry).

I got this as a gift for my mom, and she loved it. It's very informative, well written and nice illustrations.

As a toxicology consultant, I found this book to be a very nice addition to my reference library. It is technical enough to be useful for me, but not overwhelmingly complex so that I have to dig around for the information I need. This book is very nicely organized into chapters by systemic effect. And don't think that poisonous plants are restricted to the subtropics or southern US either. Without trying too hard, I can find at least 10 poisonous plants in any uncultivated field in the Upper Midwest. Luckily, human plant poisonings are quite rare in this country, but they do occur, mainly in curious children. This is a nice book to have for anyone who has interests in botany, as well as toxicology.

Not only does this book tell you about dangerous plants and plants that have medicinal uses if used correctly but it also offers anatomy and biology information to tell you how and why it does what it does. This book is going to be a great tool to my collection to keep me from using the wrong plants. I am a practicing green witch and a homesteader so I am always using and learning about plants. I need to be as informed as possible about what is dangerous and what is not for my own and my family's protection. People often trust my knowledge about various plants so this will help me explain better. They know if I don't know the answer, I will find out for them.

I wasn’t expecting this book to be so well printed. It’s such a pretty book, every page has amazing colors!

Bought this for my son who likes unique plants. He likes it, very interesting facts.

Great artwork only to be ruined by stickers that won't come off. The book was also damaged in the corner despite the box being undamaged, so they actively chose to ship a damaged and stickered book. Save the money and buy somewhere that respects books.

Came in perfect condition, beautiful photographs and some illustrations. Can't wait to start reading!

This new book on Poisonous Plants is full of excellent quality images. The text is accurate and full of case studies of the toxic effects of plants and explores the chemistry of many poisons that some plants may contain. I have to declare an interest, in that one of the authors has corresponded with me in the past and helped me where possible in my own poisonous plants researches. Dr Dauncey is based at Kew and has spent many years (certainly more than a decade) involved with the identification and effects of poisonous plants in Enland. She has already been a co-author of two volumes linked to this subject concerning plants growing in Britain. However, the remit of this title encompasses plants from all over the world and the large size of the book permits more exploration of the chemistry and groups of compounds found in these sometimes exotic plants. The structure of the book is one of themes and I think the concept works well in illustrating how different toxins can be. They may act on the heart or the brain, or the liver, or other parts of the body. The themes demonstrate the variety of poisons and their differing effects and are frequently biologically and chemically not related at all. So each section of the book can be extremely varied, to make this point. Also, some plants I had not seen in print before, such as the mexican prickly poppy contaminating crops grown to make cooking oil (mustard seed oil) led in 1998 to 3,000 hospitalisations and 60 deaths in one incident. A wide ranging title, that has great photographs and learned content that should interest anyone interested in learning about Poisonous Plants and their roles in nature and communities around the world.

This book is built very competently: excellent classification (except of last chapter, plants of which should be classified between other chapters of the book); scientific descriptions of plants, their toxins and mechanism of action of latter; interesting topics from poisonous plants' history and poisonings, including history of drugs based on those plants; a lot of beautiful photos and pictures; great introduction, that enables all of the people to read and understand medical and botanical scientific manner; short description of some of the plant families. It is really interesting, that plants described here are not just banal plants like Deadly nightshade, but also a lot of interesting tropical plants, that you won't see of or hear of every day. As a pharmacist (and a scientist generally) I liked the scientific way of content description using medical and botanical terms. I'm glad that this book became my first book about poisonous plants and opened me that enchanting world!

Amazing book! As a person who doesn't have much knowledge on the subject i love the detailed yet relevant explanations. The pictures are beautiful. I enjoy this book soooooo much.

As a grower of Herbs for many decades, it was a pleasure to purchase this book as a Mater Day present from my Son, after nearly 5years on my greenery wish list. While absolutely beautiful to look at, with a delicious fresh paper fragrance, the chapter illustrations are an exquisite single colour printed pen and ink. The information is clear and concise, photographs are colour, and the boxes of historic random of most plants evokes Agatha Christie 🤫 along with my own curiously knowing smile 🤭 as I mentally review my seed collection 🤗 Thank you Elizabeth A. Dauncey and Sonny Larsson for your words, they are so very much appreciated. (-