Beautiful but deadly
Sep 06, 2020
2 minutes
Illustration Elana Gabrielle
oisonous plants hold a deadly fascination. Best known as the hard-to-detect killers in police dramas, headline-grabbers in real-life murder plots and the subject of ancient myths, their sensational uses have left them with a bit of a bad rap. In reality, they are more commonly used for medicinal purposes. Many modern drugs are based on extracts of poisonous plants, such as the opium used in painkillers, and its witches digging up hemlock roots at night to be reminded of the macabre association.
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