Poisonous Plants

Poisonous Plants

As I wrote A Windmill with a View, I kept handy an online resource that told me which vegetables and fruits were in season during various months in England. I also referred often to Regency era cookbooks for insight on how Elizabeth could use the fresh produce. Before she marries Mr. Collins and becomes his unpaid cook and housekeeper, though, Elizabeth is handy in the Longbourn stillroom and knows something about plants. The opening scene has her grinding plants to obtain a poison.

I have described the flowers as having “bright yellow petals” and blossoms with “blushes of red and darker striated markings.” The poison itself will make its recipient ill and unable to hold down her meals.

The flower I found for this small but important duty in A Windmill with a View is called Alstroemeria.

GardenersWorld.com advises gardeners in the UK to be careful around the flower, as it can cause “mild vomiting or diarrhoea, while skin contact can cause a rash or irritation and, rarely, blisters and eye irritation.”

This flower was too good to pass up even though it was not actually present in England in 1811. “They were only introduced to Europe from South America in the mid-18th century by botanist Baron Clas Alströmer,” when they became a popular Victorian flower for their symbolism of friendship. Kind of ironic.

In A Windmill with a View, Elizabeth actually does have friendship in mind far more than any evil intent when she extracts the Alstroemeria poison. Read the book to learn how that works out.