Wicked Plants

by Amy Stewart

  One of the best-known religious groups to use the tea is União do Vegetal, or UDV. Its ceremonies usually last for several hours and are closely supervised by a more experienced member of the church. Participants experience bizarre hallucinations; one described it this way: “Dark creatures sail by. Tangles of long, hissing serpents. Dragons spitting fire. Screaming humanlike forms.”

  The experience usually ends with severe vomiting. The vomiting is seen as a kind of purge of psychological problems or demons. People who have participated in the ceremony report that it relieved their depression, cured their addiction, or treated other medical problems. Although there is little clinical evidence to support this, ayahuasca’s similarity to prescription antidepressants has interested some researchers, who have called for more detailed studies.

  PSYCHOTRIA VIRIDIS

  FAMILY:

  Rubiaceae

  HABITAT:

  Lower levels of the Amazon; also found in other parts of South America

  NATIVE TO:

  Brazil

  COMMON NAMES:

  Chacrona

  The tea also attracted the attention of Jeffrey Bronfman, a member of the wealthy family that founded Seagram, makers of whisky and gin. Bronfman formed a branch of the UDV church in the United States and began importing the tea. In 1999 his shipment was intercepted by U.S. Customs agents, and Bronfman sued to have the tea returned to him. The case landed in the Supreme Court, and in 2006 the court ruled in his favor, allowing the use of the tea for religious purposes. The court’s ruling was based primarily on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Congress had passed in response to an earlier Supreme Court ruling against the use of peyote for religious purposes. According to news reports, the church, known as Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, has 130 members and meets at Bronfman’s home in Santa Fe. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration continues to enforce the laws against nonreligious use of ayahuasca and other products containing DMT.

  “Dark creatures sail by. Tangles of long, hissing serpents, dragons spitting fire. Screaming humanlike forms.”

  Meet the Relatives Banisteriopsis Caapi is a member of a large family of flowering shrubs and vines found primarily in South America and the West Indies.

  Meet the Relatives Psychotria viridis is a member of the coffee family; relatives include cinchona, the quinine tree, and the poisonous ground cover sweet woodruff, which flavors may wine. Another powerful vine in the same genus is P. ipecacuanha, from which a treatment for plant poisonings, syrup of ipecac, is made.

  INTOXICATING

  Betel Nut

  ARECA CATECHU

  The betel nut palm rises gracefully to over thirty feet tall on a slim, dark green trunk, sports glossy dark leaves, and produces lovely white flowers that perfume tropical breezes. This palm is also responsible for the betel nut, an addictive stimulant that turns teeth black and saliva red. Four hundred million people around the world consume it.

  The custom of chewing betel nuts dates back thousands of years. Seeds from 5000 to 7000 BC have been found in a cave in Thailand, and a skeleton from 2680 BC was found in the Philippines with teeth stained by the juice of the betel nut.

  FAMILY:

  Arecaceae

  HABITAT:

  Tropical forests

  NATIVE TO:

  Malaysia

  COMMON NAMES:

  Betel palm, areca, pinang

  Like coca, the betel nut is stashed between the cheek and gum and is usually mixed with a little something extra to give it a kick. In India thin slices of the nut are wrapped in a fresh betel leaf with some slaked lime (calcium hydroxide extracted from ashes), a few Indian spices, and sometimes tobacco. The betel leaf used for the outer wrapping is the leaf of Piper betle, or “betel” vine, a low-growing perennial whose leaves are also a stimulant. In fact, the betel nut palm gets its name from its association with this unrelated, but synergistic, plant.

  This packet of leaf and nut, often called a quid, has a bitter, peppery taste, and it releases alkaloids similar to nicotine. Users get an energy boost, a mild high, and more saliva than they know what to do with.

  There’s only one way to handle the constant flow of red saliva from your mouth when you chew betel: spit it out (swallowing causes nausea). In countries where betel nuts are popular, the sidewalks are stained with red saliva. If this sounds unpleasant, consider poet and essayist Stephen Fowler’s description: “There is an almost orgasmic satisfaction to be found in the experience of saliva-ducts open to full throttle. Delicious above all is the aftermath: when the chew is finished, your mouth is left astonishingly fresh and sweet. You feel uniquely cleansed, drained, and purified.”

  There’s only one way to handle the constant flow of red saliva from your mouth when you chew betel: spit it out.

  The betel nut is enjoyed throughout India, Vietnam, Papau New Guinea, China, and in Taiwan, where the government is trying to crack down on “betel nut beauties,” scantily clad women who sit in roadside stands and sell their products to truck drivers.

  In addition to its addictive qualities—withdrawal symptoms include headaches and sweats—regular chewing of betel nuts leads to an increased risk of mouth cancer and may also contribute to asthma and heart disease. The use of betel is largely unregulated around the world, and public health officials worry that it could rival tobacco as a serious health threat.

  Meet the Relatives The betel nut palm is perhaps the best-known member of the Areca genus, which contains about fifty different species of palms. Its partner in crime, Piper betle, is related to P. nigrum, the source of black pepper, and P. methysticum, source of the mellow herbal supplement kava.

  DEADLY

  Castor Bean

  RICINUS COMMUNIS

  One autumn morning in 1978, communist defector and BBC journalist Georgi Markov walked across London’s Waterloo Bridge and stood waiting at a bus stop. He felt a painful jab in the back of his thigh and turned around in time to see a man pick up an umbrella, mumble an apology, and run away. Over the next few days, he developed a fever, had trouble speaking, began throwing up blood, and finally went to the hospital, where he died.

  FAMILY:

  Euphorbiaceae

  HABITAT:

  Warm, mild winter climates, rich soil, sunny areas

  NATIVE TO:

  Eastern Africa, parts of western Asia

  COMMON NAMES:

  Palma Christi, ricin

  The pathologist found hemorrhages in almost every organ in his body. He also found a small puncture mark on Markov’s thigh and a tiny metal pellet in his leg. The pellet contained ricin, the poisonous extract of the castor bean plant. Although KGB agents were suspected of the crime, no one has ever been charged with the infamous “umbrella murder.”

  Castor bean is a dramatic annual or tender perennial shrub with deeply lobed leaves, prickly seedpods, and large, speckled seeds. Some of the more popular garden varieties sport red stems and splashes of burgundy on the leaves. The plant can reach over ten feet tall in a single growing season and will grow into a substantial bush if it is not killed by a winter freeze. Only the seeds are poisonous. Three or four of them can kill a person, although people do survive castor seed poisoning, either because the seeds aren’t well chewed or because they are purged quickly.

  Although KGB agents were suspected of the crime, no one has ever been charged with the infamous “umbrella murder.”

  Castor oil has been a popular home remedy for centuries. (The ricin is removed during the manufacturing process.) A spoonful of the oil is an effective laxative. Castor oil packs are used externally to soothe sore muscles and inflammation. It’s also used in cosmetics and other products.

  But even this natural vegetable oil is not entirely benign: in the 1920s Mussolini’s thugs used to round up dissidents and pour castor oil down their throats, inflicting a nasty case of diarrhea on them. Sherwood Anderson described the castor oil torture this way: “It was amusing to see Fascisti, wearing bla
ck shirts and looking very earnest, bottles sticking out of their hip pockets, chasing wildly down the street after a shrieking Communist. Then the capture, the terrible assault, hurling the luckless Red to the sidewalk, injecting the bottle into his mouth to the muffled accompaniment of blasphemy of all the gods and devils in the universe.”

  Meet the Relatives The garden spurge called euphorbia, known for its irritating sap; the poinsettia, also mildly irritating but, contrary to rumor, not dangerous; and the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis, source of natural rubber, are all related to the castor bean.

  DEADLY

  ORDEAL POISONS

  Among nineteenth-century European explorers a story circulated about the existence of a West African bean that could determine a person’s guilt or innocence. According to local custom, the accused would swallow the bean, and what happened next would determine the outcome of the trial. If he vomited the bean, he was innocent, and if he died, he was guilty and got what he deserved. A third alternative existed: he could purge the nut, or evacuate it through his bowels, in which case he was also determined guilty and sold into slavery as punishment. (A thriving slave trade dating back to the early 1500s facilitated this quirk in the West African criminal justice system.)

  This practice was known as trial by ordeal, and plants used for the trials were called ordeal beans. Several plants were used; judges could choose a less toxic plant when they wanted to influence the outcome in favor of the accused.

  CALABAR BEAN

  Physostigma venenosum

  The ordeal poison of choice, the Calabar bean flourishes in warm, tropical climates; reaches up to fifty feet in height; and produces lovely red blossoms like those of the scarlet runner bean, followed by long, fat seed-pods and hefty dark brown beans.

  The alkaloid physostigmine is responsible for the bean’s toxic effects. It works like nerve gas, disrupting the lines of communication between nerves and muscles. The result is copious saliva, seizures, and loss of control over bladder and bowels; eventually, as it becomes impossible to control the respiratory system, death by asphyxiation will occur.

  Its chemical composition, along with a little armchair psychology, may explain why the plant had such different effects on the poor souls facing a trial by ordeal. A person who knew they were innocent might chew the bean quickly and swallow it with pride, ingesting a quick dose that would cause them to vomit before the bean could do more damage. A guilty party, dreading death, might take tiny, slow bites. Ironically, this attempt to prolong their own life would only hasten their death by delivering a gradual, well-digested dose of poison.

  By the 1860s Calabar beans were the talk of London. Dr. James Livingstone returned from Africa with an account of a poison he called muave and noted that tribal chiefs would volunteer to drink the muave to prove their innocence, their strength of character, or to demonstrate that they had not been the victim of witchcraft. Mary Kingsley, a pioneering explorer who broke many taboos by traveling alone to previously unexplored parts of Africa, wrote in 1897 about an oath some tribal members would make before taking an ordeal poison they called Mbiam: “If I have been guilty of this crime . . . Then, Mbiam! THOU deal with me!”

  These frightening chants did not stop intrepid British scientists from testing the beans on themselves. In an 1866 London Times story titled “Scientific Martyrdom,” Sir Robert Christison is described as having come “very near killing himself in testing the effect of the recently introduced Calabar bean upon his own organism . . . and was as nearly face to face with death as a man well can be and yet escape its jaws.”

  TANGHIN POISON-NUT

  Cerbera tanghin

  Employed in Madagascar, this relative to the suicide tree Cerbera odol-lam is poisonous in all parts; even smoke from the burning wood can be toxic. However, the nuts deliver the poison in the most convenient form for trial by ordeal.

  SASSY BARK OR CASCA BARK

  Erythrophleum guineense or E. judiciale

  Observed in use along the banks of the Congo, the curvy, reddish-brown bark of this tree is toxic enough to stop the heart. Ranchers know to keep their cattle away from it, because it could even kill a steer. Other names for the tree include “ordeal bark” and “doom bark.”

  STRYCHNINE TREE

  Strychnos nux-vomica

  The seed of the strychnine tree is a potent enough poison to make it useful as an ordeal bean. Any prisoner offered nux vomica seeds to prove their innocence would be well advised to do some fast talking and suggest another ordeal poison, because the strychnine is far more likely to cause convulsions and death by asphyxiation than vomiting.

  UPAS TREE

  Antiaris toxicaria

  This Indonesian tree produces a toxic sap that’s also useful as an arrow poison. It was once (falsely) believed to produce narcotic fumes, and tales circulated that prisoners were being put to death simply by tying them to the upas tree and letting its sap and fumes slowly poison the condemned.

  ILLEGAL

  Coca

  ERYTHROXYLUM COCA

  In 1895 Sigmund Freud wrote to a colleague that “a cocainization of the left nostril had helped me to an amazing extent.” A modest, medium-sized shrub had transformed Freud’s entire outlook on life. “In the last few days I have felt quite unbelievably well,” he wrote, “as though everything had been erased . . . I have felt wonderful, as though there never had been anything wrong at all.”

  FAMILY:

  Erythroxylaceae

  HABITAT:

  Tropical rain forest

  NATIVE TO:

  South American

  COMMON NAME:

  Cocaine

  Archaeological evidence shows that coca leaves were placed between the cheek and gum as a mild stimulant as early as 3000 BC. When the Incas came into power in Peru, the ruling class seized control of the coca supply, and when Spanish conquistadores arrived in the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church banned the use of the devilish plant. Eventually, practical considerations won out, and the Spanish government realized that it would be better off regulating and taxing the use of coca, while making it available to slaves who had been forced to work in gold and silver mines. The Spaniards found that, with enough coca, the natives could work quickly, for long hours, with very little food. (Never mind the fact that most died after a few months of this treatment.)

  An Italian doctor named Paolo Mantegazza promoted the medicinal and recreational use of the leaves of the coca plant in the mid-nineteenth century. He was so enthralled by his discovery that he wrote: “I sneered at the poor mortals condemned to live in this valley of tears while I, carried on the wings of two leaves of coca, went flying through the spaces of 77,438 words, each more splendid than the one before . . .”

  Cocaine, an alkaloid that can be extracted from coca leaves, has been used as an anesthetic, a pain reliever, a digestive aid, and an all-around health tonic. Trace amounts were present in early versions of the soft drink Coca-Cola; while the company’s recipe is a closely guarded secret, coca extract is still believed to be a flavoring, just without the cocaine alkaloid. The leaves are legally imported by an American manufacturer, which buys it from Peru’s National Coca Company, transforms it into Coca-Cola’s secret flavoring, and extracts the cocaine for pharmaceutical use as a topical anesthetic.

  The coca plant’s ability to inspire humans to go to war, both against each other and against the plant, may be its most deadly quality.

  The coca plant’s ability to inspire humans to go to war, both against each other and against the plant, may be its most deadly quality. A healthy shrub can produce three crops a year of fresh, glossy leaves. The cocaine and other alkaloids in the leaves serve as a natural pesticide, helping to ensure that the plant flourishes even when it’s under attack. Although a few different species can be used to extract cocaine, the plant used most often for this purpose is Erythroxylum coca, which grows along the eastern slope of the Andes mountain range.

  In native Andean communities, coca leaves a
re still chewed as a mild stimulant. Some pharmacological studies suggest that this provides a much milder and nonaddicting stimulation that works on a different part of the brain than cocaine does. The leaves are surprisingly nutritious and very high in calcium, prompting a minister in Bolivia’s new pro-coca government to suggest that instead of milk, coca leaves should be fed to schoolchildren.

  The shrub has also survived attacks from another kind of enemy: the drug war’s aerial spraying of the herbicide glyphosate. Drug eradication programs have been foiled by a new, resistant variety of coca called Boliviana negra. It emerged, apparently, without any help from scientists in laboratories. Instead, naturally resistant plants have simply been discovered in the fields and passed from farmer to farmer.

  Advocates of traditional coca farming point out that coca is an Andean crop dating back several thousand years, while cocaine was invented in Europe 150 years ago. The problems created by cocaine use, they suggest, should be solved within those countries and not at the expense of the coca plant.

  Meet the Relatives Erythroxylum coca is the best-known member of this family of angiosperms, but E. novagranatense also contains the cocaine alkaloid. E. rufum, or false cocaine, can be found in some botanical gardens in the United States.