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

Super cool book if you are into plants, especially plants that are poisonous. It has charts of the differences between them, as well as really cool scientific chem charts outlining the different properties of the poisons. Super neat if you are into this type of stuff.

Talk about an ideal book! It is somewhat large, was an exceptional value, and is a fascinating look at how our physiology is impacted by plants without being too overwhelmingly technical. It is generously illustrated with both actual photos and superior artistic renderings of our anatomical systems. Love love this book and highly recommend it!!

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.

Just exactly what I needed. Right at the level of information I desired. Well organized, clear and great writing style. I ran across a blerb on the Poison Gardens of Italy and England and was facinated. I wanted to know more and bought this book. Who knew some of the flowers I grow in my yard have toxic properties? This book certainly made my gardening efforts safer for children and pets!

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.

This is an awesome book. It has just the right balance of botanical and chemical facts, as well as why and how poisons affect the human body. Beautifully organized, and we’ll designed. You will not regret buying this book.

I bought this to research a book I'm writing. Vivid imagery and great information available at a glance.

So glad I purchased this book!!!! I love it!!!!

The book is beautiful and has stunning illustrations. I also enjoy how easy the information is to understand and how much information it includes on the different plants.

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.

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!

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