Dangerous Salad
Monkshood flowers (Aconitum columbianum) emerge among the false hellebore (Veratrum californicum) in a subalpine wetland, just below Notch Mountain in the Sawatch Range in central Colorado. Both of these plants are chemically defended against herbivores with potent toxic alkaloids. Monkshood roots are particularly dangerous, and poison from a European species was used by the Romans on their spears and arrows, as well as a deterrent for werewolves (and real wolves- thus another common name is wolfsbane).
Dangerous Salad
Monkshood flowers (Aconitum columbianum) emerge among the false hellebore (Veratrum californicum) in a subalpine wetland, just below Notch Mountain in the Sawatch Range in central Colorado. Both of these plants are chemically defended against herbivores with potent toxic alkaloids. Monkshood roots are particularly dangerous, and poison from a European species was used by the Romans on their spears and arrows, as well as a deterrent for werewolves (and real wolves- thus another common name is wolfsbane).