Briony Morrow-Cribbs: Illustrations in Wicked Plants Book

The hardcover book titled, Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities, written by Amy Stewart and published by Algonquin Books, contains 40 of Briony Morrow-Cribbs' (05) slightly menacing botanical illustrations and is now at local bookstores and online.

Accompanying the release of the book will be a show at the Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery in New York and another at Eureka Books in California that will feature hand-tinted versions of the illustrations. With the release of the book, Morrow-Cribbs has produced a limited edition set of the prints as a portfolio. The Wicked Plants Portfolio will contain all 40 of the hand-pulled prints (plus two hand-tinted prints) and will be contained in a clamshell box made by Claudia Cohen. The portfolio will contain letter-pressed introductions by Amy Stewart and Morrow-Cribbs and will be printed by Rollin Milroy of Heavenly Monkey Press in Vancouver.

"A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. In Wicked Plants, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature's most appalling creations. It's an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. You'll learn which plants to avoid (like exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother).

Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers."