Monkshood (Aconitum napellus) by Liz

Image Copyright 2013 Liz Orr

With its stunning violet-blue hooded flowers, this is a beautiful but very poisonous plant.  The leaves, flowers and roots are highly toxic when eaten, and it can also be harmful via the skin. This plant seems to go by a surprising number of different names.

Other common names

• Adam and Eve
• Bear's foot
• Common aconite
• Common monk's cowl
• Cupid's cap
• Dumbledore's delight
• Elijah's chariot
• Flapdock
• Friar's cap
• Garden monk's hood
• Garden wolf's bane
• Grandmother's nightcap
• Helen flower
• Helen's flower
• Helmet flower
• Monk's cap
• Monkshood
• Pops
• Soldier's cap
• Turk's cap
• Venus's chariot drawn by two doves

from the Royal Horticultural Society Website
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/plantselector/plant?plantid=4361

Flame Lily (Gloriosa superba) by Pam

Image copyrights 2013 Pam Borland

Gloriosa or Flame Lily is the national flower of Zimbabwe, where it is a protected plant. Queen Elizabeth II was given a diamond brooch in the shape of a flame lily when she visited Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) as a princess in 1947.

It is also the state flower of Tamil Nadu in India and the national flower of Tamil Eelam.

Across the world they have been cultivated by the pharmaceutical industry as they contain the chemical colchicine. Though beautiful, the flowers and leaves are extremely poisonous, causing death to animals and birds if eaten. They grow from tuberous roots and cause problems if they spread into native bushland.