Historical Uses Of Plants as Weapons

Recently the papers reported that the Indian government was using one of the world's hottest peppers, the bhut jolokia to smoke terrorists out caves. This is a follow-up on an earlier use of botanical heat by the same country, a so-called "curry bomb" that consisted of pepper mixed red chili pepper and phosphorous compounded into a grenade which was introduced for use as a smoke screen and immobilizing agent against enemy fighters mixed in crowds which was put into use in 2008.

But using plants as weapons is nothing new. The Scottish Thistle has earned its place in the heraldry of Scotland because an invading enemy force was defeated by the ornery and thorny plant. An invading army of Norsemen during the 13th Century crept into Scotland barefoot and under cover of darkness. Their stealthy attack was interrupted when one of the enemy encountered its thorns and let out a roar. For its part in saving Scotland, the lowly thistle was memorialized on silver coins in the reign of James III in 1470 and was later adopted as the prestigious order of the Thistle.

Ancients used Hellebore plants, known commonly as Christmas and Easter Rose, to break sieges. The acutely toxic plants cause intense digestive distress when used to poison water supplies. Although these beautiful ornamentals are still used today and especially valued for their ability to grow through ice and snow, they do not belong within reach of children.

Early colonists in the United States encountered the very nasty Datura plant, which they later remained "Jimsonweed, a corruption of the word "Jamestown weed," after Jamestown, Virginia where the toxic plant grew wild and helped cause additional misery to the already troubled Colonists. Although this potent hallucinogenic was enshrined in native belief as a giver of dreams, the colonists fed it to invading British troops during the American Revolution where it quickly became their nightmare.

A very beautiful and ubiquitous garden shrub, valued for its year-round beauty, the English Yew or Taxus Baccata is toxic in nearly all of its parts and the wood was traditionally used for Longbows, making it doubly deadly.

Even today, plants are being employed as agents of warfare. The most notorious example was the Central Intelligence Agency 's LSD experiments. Under the auspices of a top-secret program known as MK-ULTRA, funded as a defense against possible Communist brainwashing and mind-control, the CIA decided to invent their own brainwashing techniques.

During the duration of this controversial program, the CIA explored the use of both Psilocybin, or "magic mushroom" a hallucinogenic mushroom previously employed in religious rituals by various indigenous peoples of the Southwestern United States and Mexico, and Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) a drug synthesized from a lowly fungus of rye whose previous claims to fame included among others: inciting medieval witch hunts and ergot poisoning that destroyed blood circulation and cost victims their the fingers and toes.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, this expensive program was a big dud (at least the part that is no longer classified) and went away only after taking the lives and sanity of several unwitting participants.

Although plants are valuable for food, medicine, lumber and so many other things, in the wrong hands they can be used for powerful evil.

Sources:
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/theappetizer/archive/2010/03/24/food-fight-india-unveils-its-new-anti-insurgency-weapon-160-hot-peppers.aspx
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-552028/Curry-bomb-Indian-army-chiefs-reveal-latest-weapon-war-terror.html
http://www.scotshistoryonline.co.uk/thistle/thistle.html
http://www.bbg.org/exp/wickedplants/
http://science.discovery.com/stories/mkultra.html