The Deadliest Plants in the World

ANGEL’S TRUMPETS, DEVIL'S BREATH, AND THE ZOMBIE’S CUCUMBER

The genii Brugmansia and Datura are very closely related and remarkably similar; they are both shrubs or bushes with elegant, trumpet-like flowers common all around South America. Oh, and they also might erase your memories and destroy your free will, reducing you to a helpless flesh-slave in thrall to a voodoo priest or a ruthless drug lord. These flowering plants contain large amounts of the alkaloid scopolamine, known to some as “truth serum” for its ability to lessen the inhibitions of (just as an example) prisoners of the CIA known to be holding important secrets. In heavier dosages, the pharmaceutical products of these two plants can cause delirium and hallucinations so powerful they can convince someone that they have died and come back to life as a mindless slave—the foundation of the zombie myth and supposedly a tool of Colombian drug cartels. Datura is occasionally used as a recreational drug, but datura trips are almost always reported as at best unpleasant and at worst suicidally horrifying, so you may want to steer clear of these plants unless you’re looking for a particularly exotic/attractive/morbid addition to your flower garden.