The Devil’s Garden: The World's Most Sinister Plants and Fungi

by Peter Marren

A lively exploration of the poisoners, tricksters, stingers, stinkers and invaders of the plant world and how their lives intertwine with ours.
Some plants and fungi – those we cultivate in farms, gardens and allotments – are pretty, useful or edible. Others are more poisonous, or with painful stings, sinister looks or foul smells. In the medieval mind, these would be the flowers of the devil, planted on earth to torment humankind.
The infamous death cap mushroom, innocent-looking but lethal. The monstrous corpse flower, with a stench to match its name. The mandrake, said to scream if uprooted. In this deeply insightful and unflinching read, naturalist and conservationist Peter Marren explores the world’s ‘worst’ plants and fungi and the ways they maim, murder and make mischief to get by.
These species have rich histories, steeped in folklore and superstition, but there are also biological reasons behind why they are the way they are. Step into the devil’s garden and discover their stories, as amusing as they are unexpected and as gripping as they are horrifying.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature

288 pages, Hardcover

Published July 7, 2026

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was at first a bit loath to try Peter Marren’s 2026 The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi. For yes, I certainly was wondering whether Marren’s text (due to the decidedly negative wording of the book title) would be anti plants, anti fungi and would as such also strive to anthropomorphise toxic, stinging and stinking plants and mushrooms as well as endeavour to textually turn them (as has indeed in my opinion so so often been the case in books covering potentially dangerous plants and fungi) into nastily murderous and at best freakily mischievous outlaws out to maim and to kill us humans with the utmost of specific and very much deliberate malice (and that the plants and fungi of The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi would therefore all and sundry likely be depicted and described by Peter Marren not only negatively but also with intense personal criticism and abject culpability). But well, since my local bookshop had a copy of The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi for sale, I decided to give The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi a chance and a try.

And albeit Marren’s presented plants and mushrooms for The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi (and from all over the world, although there is since Peter Marren is British somewhat of an emphasis on the UK) are described meticulously (but never with too much botanical or fungal specific jargon) both scientifically and also with regard to folklore, it is shown what happens if or when people are poisoned, stung and the like (and also the diverse outcomes, including which plants and fungi often or even generally lead to almost certain death, such as for example regarding Madagascar’s infamous suicide tree or the notorious death cap mushroom), I am truth be told rather majorly pleasantly surprised that Marren’s negative and judgmental wording of the book title notwithstanding, he in and with The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi obviously does not in fact consider toxic, stinging and malodorous plants and mushrooms as somehow being criminals and with Marren also demonstrating in The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi that here is no actual malice aimed at us by henbane, thorn apple, deadly nightshade and company, that their harmful qualities are merely an accident of evolution, created as necessary defensive tools (and actually often even millions of years ago).

Now even if I still do not at all enjoy the misleading and profoundly negative wording of the book heading (and find this profoundly misleading as well as hugely annoying), since I have definitely massively enjoyed what Peter Marren textually provides in and with The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi (have also found much of the book enlightening, nicely engagingly entertaining) and also appreciate the up-to-date list of sources and suggestions for further reading, I will be rating The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi with solidly four stars (although a less personally annoying for and to me title would make my rating five stars). And by the way, while The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi has not actually been penned with young readers in mind, in my opinion, what Marren is textually providing is definitely suitable for readers from about the age of twelve or so onwards (but of course with the caveat that since Peter Marren writes about plants and mushrooms which can poison, which can sting etc., there are of course descriptions of people getting hurt and even getting killed by plants and by fungi to be encountered in The Devil’s Garden: The World’s Most Sinister Plants and Fungi, nothing luridly horrifying, to be sure, but this is of course and necessarily so there and also thus rather omnipresent).

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written, and, interestingly, not just focused on poisonous plants. It includes things like thorns and psychoactive substances like opium.

Books like these are a great rejoinder to people who think that "natural" means "safe" and think that chemicals are scary are inherently bad, not understanding that natural things are made of chemicals and there is no reason to think that natural chemicals are in any way better or safer than synthetic ones. This book doesn't go heavily into chemistry, but the long list of toxic plants is pretty good evidence that just because something is natural, that doesn't mean it is safe.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up.

This was really interesting. It’s amazing how plants have evolved to survive and the mythology around certain plants is fascinating. Definitely a good book to expand your plant lore knowledge.

Took me longer to read because there were no pictures and I had to keep going on my phone to look at the plants. I would have given a higher score for pictures but I do also appreciate that trying to choose which plants to include would have been a nightmare and possibly doubled the size of the book.

Still a worthwhile read with humor and some interesting Pokemon facts, truth.

[Marius K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy reading and entertaining. I learned a lot. Worth the time if you are into gardening or culture of the dark kind. Interesting tidbits regarding Shakespeare and folk stories and mythology. I enjoyed it.