While research poisons for a story I’m writing, I have discovered that the aconitum I planted in my garden last year (and that has come back so nicely this year) is none other than the famous poison monkshood, or wolfsbane. It is a potent neurotoxin that produces numbness, paralysis, and (yes) death. All parts of the plant are poisonous.

But never fear. Yesterday, right next to the aconitum, I planted foxglove. Foxglove is the source of digitalis, itself a deadly poison. But digitalis is fortunately also an antidote for aconitine.

What luck!