BELLADONNA

The flowers of the Belladonna are as poisonous as they are beautiful – its toxins blurring reality and fantasy in a somnolent haze. Its branches stand tall, with small tendrils reaching out as though grasping at innocent passers like a jealous lover. Its roots, sinuous and gnarled, lurk under the soil in communion with the earth – the most potent part of the plant, the most seemingly innocuous. Victorian belles dropped tinctures of Belladonna into their eyes, widening their irises with the supreme focus of an oracle. The prospect of blindness was seen as a price to pay for beauty – perhaps a fitting tribute to this most enigmatic of plants.

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