Part 9 (2/2)
”I'm on my way right now,” I said as I hung up on Zach. I could make it to the gardens in thirty minutes when I got back home to my car, if luck was with me. I just hoped Jay, the garden manager, was there.
HE WASN'T.
”Do you know when he'll be back?” I asked the volunteer behind the desk at the Botanical Gardens Welcome Center. I'd driven through the big black iron gates and had been lucky to find a parking s.p.a.ce near the front.
She frowned, and then leafed through a few papers. ”Sorry, but he didn't say.”
”Will it be today, do you think?”
”Oh, I doubt that,” she said with a shrug. ”He had a suitcase with him when he left here two hours ago. Let me make a call.”
She got on a walkie-talkie and asked, ”Jim, do you have any idea when Jay will be back?”
”Two weeks,” a voice replied.
”Thanks.”
She looked at me and said, ”Two weeks.”
”Yes, I got that. Is there anyone else I can speak with who's knowledgeable about local poisonous flora?”
She nodded. ”Jim is taking over for Jay while he's gone. He's from the Botany Department at UNC Asheville.” I knew that the campus for the university was nearby, so I suppose it made sense.
”Is there any chance I might speak with him? It's important, or I wouldn't ask.”
”Hang on a second. I'll check,” the woman said.
After she made the request, Jim told her, ”I'm tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the American beautyberry up on the trail. If she wants to talk to me, have her come over here so we can do it while I work.”
I got directions, thanked the volunteer, and exited the center, heading down the path on the left that I'd taken countless times before. I descended the slight hill and walked over to the concrete table and chairs where I often picnicked when I was in the mood for a touch of nature. Oddly, something crunched underfoot, and I looked down to see a host of broccoli florets, and all for the most part untouched. How odd.
I kept walking on the path, crossed the green wooden bridge, and made a left at the Memorial Rock Outcrop, where many delicate native species were planted. I found a thin, young, bearded man with a pair of garden shears in his hands, studying a bushy plant that had clearly taken a beating recently. It was still quite attractive, despite the carnage, sporting purple-cl.u.s.tered berries along its stems and serrated green leaves emerging from the groups.
”It's lovely,” I said as I studied it behind him.
”You should have seen it a few days ago,” he said sadly. ”Jay and I are trying to decide how to trim it.” He pointed to a shattered tree nearby. ”It came down in a storm and nearly took out the entire bush.”
”I have a suggestion, if you're interested,” I said.
”Anything's welcome at this point,” he said.
I studied the bush again, and then said, ”If it were me, I'd leave it exactly like it is.”
”But it's damaged,” he protested, as if I'd just suggested he light a match and try to set the remnants on fire.
”Don't get me wrong; I'd trim the dead branches,” I said, ”but I wouldn't do anything to the overall shape. I never saw this bush before, and I think it's glorious, no matter how lovely it was before the storm. It's a matter of perspective, don't you think?”
He looked at it again, and then shrugged. ”You may be right. I'll leave it alone for now.”
”I have a question for you,” I said.
”I'll answer it if I can.”
”I saw a lot of broccoli florets on the ground by the stone bench across the creek. Is it some kind of experiment in modern composting or something?”
He grinned. ”Nothing so scientific. If I hadn't been working in the creek nearby, I would have been baffled as well. One of our visual media arts students from the university wrote a script for her cla.s.s, and she was filming it with her cla.s.smates.”
”What was it about, the power of broccoli?”
He laughed, and I loved the easiness in it. Jim sounded like a man completely comfortable in his own skin. ”I suppose that's exactly what it was, in its own way. Emily, that's the student, showed me a final cut of the film to explain their insane behavior. It was a spoof on the old black-and-white horror movies. Her premise was that the only thing that would stop a zombie attack was broccoli, since n.o.body likes it. At least that was her punch line. I happen to love the stuff myself, but she had a point. It was all pretty hilarious.” He snipped a dead branch, and then stood back to examine the result before he spoke again. ”But I'm sure you weren't looking for Jay to answer the great broccoli question for you.”
”No, but it's a delicate subject, and I'm not sure I should involve you in it.”
He scratched his chin. ”Well, I'll say this for you; you certainly know how to build suspense. Tell you what. Why don't you ask your question, and I'll decide if I want to answer it or not?”
”That sounds fair,” I said. ”It involves a locally available plant or tree that has cyanogenic glycosides in its bark, leaves, or berries.”
He whistled. ”That's some serious poison you're talking about there.”
”Then you won't help me?”
”Why not? You can find that information in any library,” he said. ”What you do with the knowledge is completely up to you. Let's see, if I wanted high doses of cyanogenic glycosides, I'd probably use wild cherry or black cherry.”
”They're really poisonous?”
He grinned as he said, ”More than most folks know. In the wrong amounts, the seeds, leaves, twigs, and even bark contain quant.i.ties of amygdalin and prunasin.”
”But not cyanogenic glycosides?”
”That's what they are,” he said, his enthusiasm for death and destruction filling him, for some reason, with great glee. ”When they're ingested, they transform into highly toxic hydrocyanic acid.”
”What would that do to you?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the outcome of the poisoning.
Jim thought about it, and then finally said, ”Let's see, you could have respiratory failure, spasms, go into a coma, or even die from it.”
”That's pretty powerful,” I agreed. ”Is there anything else that might have the same result?”
He nodded, and then pointed to a nearby harmless-looking plant. ”You don't want to eat any of these leaves, especially if they've wilted or have been cut. The same thing could happen with them, and this plant is found nearly everywhere around here.”
”What's it called?”
”One of the other symptoms I didn't mention is losing your voice. That may be why they call it chokecherry.”
I WAITED UNTIL I WAS BACK IN MY CAR TO PHONE ZACH. IT just didn't seem right talking about death among all that beauty. I'd known nature had a bite at times, but it was amazing how deadly a common-looking plant could be. Jim had studied them around the campus extensively, and was writing a paper on the many ways that flora could kill.
”Hey,” I said when Zach answered. ”I got word from an expert that the most likely culprit is either wild cherry, black cherry, or chokecherry.”
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