As I stepped out one evening upon
a night's career,
I spied a lofty clipper ship and to her I did steer.
I hoisted up my sig-in-als which she so quickly knew,
And when she seen my sig-in-als fly, she immediately hove to.
She had a dark
and a rovin' eye,
And her hair hung down in ring-a-lets.
She was a nice girl, a
dacent girl,
But one of the rakish kind.
............................................................
Now all you jolly sailormen who sail upon the sea
From England to Amerikay take warning
now from me.
Beware of lofty fire ships, they'll be the ruin of you.
'Twas there I had me mizzen sprung, and me strong box broke into.
The Fireship, Folk song
Just as lofty "clipper ships" can disguise malevolent features so can a beautiful perennial. The delicately flowered Lily of the Valley - Convallaria majalis is poisonous throughout. A bed of them against the north side of the house is running amok again. They love this microclimate and have to be drastically thinned periodically. I can always find someone to gleefully take the surplus plants. This is but one of a multitude of perennials that harbor toxins.
Another moisture and shade loving plant, Jack in the Pulpit - Arisaema spp., also should not be chewed. I used to have a magnificent specimen among the Lily of the Valley. Alas, one year it did not return. I know not why. One of the dilemmas of gardening is the sudden disappearance of a beloved plant. Another is the resurgence of something one would rather do without or at least keep in moderation. The latter is exemplified by my Foxgloves - Digitalis purpurea. Every spring there seem to be hundreds of thousands of Foxglove seedlings surrounding last year's flowering of this biennial. I let nature take its course with survival of the fittest after some judicious pruning of the periphery. Even the seeds of the Foxglove contain cardiac or steroid glycosides.
My Monkshood, Aconitum spp. catches some kind of fungus and more than half of a magnificent stand dies back before flowering. Could its other common name, Wolfsbane, have something to do with it? This is another poisonous plant. I seem to collect so many plants that harbor a bit of danger yet I really am a person of most benign temperament. Just ask Kay,
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