{"id":3822,"date":"2026-10-19T01:25:04","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T00:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/sulfurous-belladonna-the-medicinal-plant-that-can-also-kill-you\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T01:25:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T00:25:05","slug":"sulfurous-belladonna-the-medicinal-plant-that-can-also-kill-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/sulfurous-belladonna-the-medicinal-plant-that-can-also-kill-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Sulfurous Belladonna: The Medicinal Plant That Can Also Kill You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes called the devil\u2019s cherry, or furious nightshade, the \u201cbelle-dame\u201d has been renowned for centuries for its medicinal properties, but ingesting its dark, highly toxic berries can prove deadly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Quite rare in the wild in France<\/strong>, the belladonna<\/strong> is a herbaceous plant<\/strong> that can grow up to 1.5 meters tall and particularly favors calcareous soils. Recognizable by its brown-tinted bell-shaped flower and its fleshy, glossy black berry, which can resemble a grape, it is as beautiful as it is dangerous.<\/p>\n

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It is generally estimated that ingesting two to four belladonna berries is enough to kill a child, while ten to twenty would be necessary to cause death in an adult. Consuming its leaves can provoke delirium and hallucinations.<\/p>\n

The main culprits are hyoscyamine, atropine, and scopolamine, three potent alkaloids which, in high doses, can lead to neurovegetative disturbances, tachycardia, breathing difficulties, seizures, and even cardiorespiratory arrest.<\/p>\n

At therapeutic doses, these substances have several medical applications. Atropine, for instance, can treat certain slow heart rhythms and reduce saliva production before surgery. Scopolamine, meanwhile, helps prevent motion sickness.<\/p>\n

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The devastating effects of the \u201cfurious nightshade\u201d have been known for millennia. In antiquity, the Romans used to dip the tips of their arrows in a belladonna decoction to make these projectiles even deadlier.<\/p>\n

According to a sixteenth-century Scottish chronicle, King Duncan I allegedly used this plant against invading Danes. By distributing wine and beer laced with belladonna, he would have plunged their troops into a deep sleep, allowing Macbeth and his men to ambush them.<\/p>\n

Very sweet, the juice of belladonna berries could also be easily mixed into a drink or dish, which made it a poison of choice for centuries. According to some ancient accounts, the wife of the Roman emperor Claudius<\/strong> used such a stratagem to help her son Nero<\/strong> ascend to the throne.<\/p>\n

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This risk prompted many rulers and statesmen to employ taste-testers to avoid meeting such a fate.<\/p>\n

The \u201cbelle dame\u201d then became an indispensable figure in Europe<\/strong> during the Renaissance. Wealthy Italian women smeared their faces with belladonna-based preparations and also used its oil to dilate their pupils, thereby appearing more alluring.<\/p>\n

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You regularly consume close relatives of belladonna: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and potatoes likewise belong to the Solanaceae family. If their stems and leaves contain toxic substances intended to deter would-be eaters, the parts we consume are generally safe.<\/p>\n

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To learn more, discover these 15 quirky anecdotes about plants, revealing the ingenuity of nature. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2532,117,2533,424,2531],"class_list":["post-3822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-belladonna","tag-kill","tag-medicinal","tag-plant","tag-sulfurous","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3824,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3822\/revisions\/3824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}