Summary Of Wicked Plants By Amy Stewart

I chose Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart over the others on the list of approved books because it sounded more interesting and more relevant than some that just focused on one branch of Botany, instead of the entire wicked spectrum like Stewart does. I like how she breaks up the world of devious plants into seven distinct categories. The plants are reported on alphabetically with relation to their crime, but with a heading that falls under one of the seven wicked categories; deadly, destructive, dangerous, illegal, intoxicating, offensive, and painful. She then gives the name of the plant or family group and a famous story of introduction to each on how someone was affected by them. The symptoms are listed, as well as their possible cures or …show more content…
It doesn’t have to be human death; animal, plant and industrial death all contribute to a death in some way. In some instances, the destructive side effects are more notable and unique than the death they might eventually cause. Destructive plants hold only eight percent of the entire wicked plants in the book but include some of the worst property damagers out there. These destructive plants like killer algae aren’t harmful to humans directly, but the algae poisons the fish that we could eat and it could harm us. Currently killer algae covers over fifty square miles of the ocean floor, over thirty two thousand acres and is toxic to fish and other marine life (loc. 880-902). Water hyacinth works in the same ways as the killer algae in respect to humans, especially who survive on waterways that become clogged by the plants or rely on the boats who flow through the waters and become chop the algae into baby plants that propagate into disasters for water channels and other marine life (loc. 2016-2046). Other plants labeled destructive are land plants and like the algae, cover anything in its path in the name of survival. Dodder is one such plant that takes over its host plant and sucks out nutrients as it cannot photosynthesis on its own (loc. 1561). Purple Nutsedge takes this one step further as it crowds the nearby plants and kills the competition with a poison that leaves it the only plant able to survive in that region (loc. 1574). Most destructive plants are invasive and refuse to leave easily or quickly. Some people spend hours pulling the invasive species and if they miss one piece of root or one stem, the plant could come back in full force over the weekend or throughout the week. Invasive destructive plants will take over the habitat they happen upon to make sure their descendants have the chance to grow and prosper in a habitat they don’t