The Devil’s Garden

The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi, Bloomsbury Wildlife, 2026, by Peter Marren. See here for one of his contributions to British Wildlife magazine: A graduation, garden wildlife, British Wildlife Magazine and a tribute to Willmie Jalius – Animal Wild

The author is my type of gardener – let things be and see what happens. It is only this year that I realised I have a Damson Tree (fruiting for the first time). But I am not liking this book nearly as much as I hoped. Marren is obviously hugely knowledgeable, but I began to weary of the accounts given in excruciating detail of how particular toxins damage or destroy the human body. It isn’t that they’re unpleasant (although of course they are), it’s more that they get rather repetitive and perhaps are better suited to a medical textbook. After so many, I found myself skipping past them. For me they disrupt the flow. I would have been more interested in further speculation as to why plants develop toxins but the answer seems to be that we don’t really know and that they may often simply be an evolutionary by-product. Which seems rather unlikely to me. Perhaps it would have been better to have those detailed breakdowns separately as an appendix.

The book cries out for colour photographs. But there are plenty of nuggets and I very much liked the chapter on nettles – grasping them doesn’t work. Good of Marren to try that out for us so that we don’t have to. I was intrigued by the Welwitschia mirabilis, “a complete one-off, unrelated to any other living plant”, but I would love to know more as to how this came to be. Also the phenomenally toxic Jequirity. Bracelets made from its seeds were on sale at the Eden Project shop before a botanist spotted them – they were recalled, presumably with alacrity.

I very much liked how much is said in the few words about “man’s epic solipsism” but rather tired of the Shakespeare quotations. It’s easy to search the entire Works and find a reference to almost anything. These can be enlightening but sometimes they just seem like fillers.

Certain plants mimic others which are rich in nectar, so deceiving would-be pollinators whilst a group of orchids, Dracula, release scents that suggest mushrooms so attracting gnats who feed on funghi. Marren describes the name as a nod to Bram Stoker which is no doubt the case, but the name “Dracula” has far older, fifteenth-century roots.

Rafflesia are huge, rare, foul-smelling, parasites. Astonishingly they are or were capable of stealing genes from other plants, they actually incorporated them into their own genetic make-up.

The book has considerable breadth, covering henbane, opium, funghi and many more ‘culprits’. There is a whole chapter ‘The Scream of the Mandrake’, a plant which has generated much mythology. But what I remember from a footnote to Shakespeare read at school, is that one story is that it grows from where a hanged man has ejaculated onto the ground in his death throes. Marren hints at this but rather skirts around it, which is odd because he does not seem coy elsewhere. The root resembles a homunculus. I also remembered that it is supposed to scream when pulled from the ground. The short-lived Mandrake Press was taken over by Aleister Crowley and others before folding in 1930. The publications are quite collectable.

Marren’s anger at the pollution of the River Wye in particular from intensive chicken farm run-off is intense and laudable. Cheaper chicken but at catastrophic ecological cost.

In the chapter about Jimson weed, Marren explains that Jimson is the local pronunciation of Jamestown. In case we still haven’t got it, it it, he says it’s just like Teignmouth being pronounced ‘Tinmuth’. Erm, what?

He also delves into insect-eating plants, problematic ‘invaders’ and more.

The very last line of the book, though, before the epilogue, reads: “The devilry is not in the plants. It is in we ourselves.” I don’t think it is grammatically pedantic to point out that the second sentence is jarringly incorrect. It seems astonishing that no editor or proof-reader picked up on it.

I feel that I have been harsh about The Devil’s Garden – it is well worth reading and I found a great deal to like, but certain irritations and an uneven tone made me less than wholly eager to return to it. I am not sure who the audience is supposed to be – clearly not me. But I am glad the author enjoyed his mushroom trip.

In my own garden yesterday I heard an unfamiliar call. I turned as so often to the Merlin app which recognised, to my surprise and delight, a Blackcap. I have only seen one clearly once. I caught glimpses as he or she flew to another part of the garden and then away but they were too fleeting to make a confirmed visual identification. Nice to know though and definitely a first here to my knowledge. Meanwhile the beauty of the Nuthatches takes my breath away, every single time. Collins Bird Guide eloquently describes the song of the Blackcap as “one of the finest; begins like Garden Warbler’s with irresolute chattering … turning into clear , slightly melancholy flute-like notes at end.”

I am grateful for author and former colleague Nancy Campbell’s permission to publish her photograph of this powerful work of art by graffiti artist 10foot. She sent it to me in solidarity with my local trees under fire. It’s part of an exhibition at the Museum of Homelessness in London. The metal structure is ‘protecting’ a Hawthorn. I showed it to someone yesterday who didn’t get anything from it at all but I quickly gave up trying to explain – as pointless as deconstructing a joke until it is no longer funny (unless you are Stewart Lee). For me anyway this operates on a multitude of profound levels and has a great deal to say about our relationship with nature.

Coincidentally, I was sent almost simultaneously a link to Chris Packham’s support of The Big Issue’s ‘The Art of Protest’ campaign. One image is especially powerful. I can’t reproduce it here because of copyright but you can see it here: (7) Chris Packham – Very pleased to be part of the Big Issue ‘The Art… | Facebook

It shows a Snowy Owl against a white background with just the eyes, beak and a few feather markings standing out. The caption is “I am more beautiful than you”. The owl has an accusatory stare, as they tend to do.

On a completely random tangent, I read recently, somewhere or other, that the scientific jury is out as to whether glass is a solid or a liquid. The conclusion is that it is an amorphous solid, something in between the two states. As the saying goes, every day is a school day. Not to forget that humans supposedly discovered glass by accident.