In early August I received an email from a friend, the first time we’d communicated in many months, maybe even years. “Hey Bill,” Rob wrote, “is it just me or is monkshood exceptionally abundant this summer? I seem to remember that in the past I would only encounter occasional sparse patches of them, but now they flower in profusion all over the place.”
As it turned out, I’d recently traded similar observations with a couple of friends who pay attention to such things. Not to say that I ever considered local monkshood to be “sparse.” I know certain meadows where I can reliably find Aconitum delphiniifolium in large numbers every summer. Still, all three of us agreed that monkshood flowers seem unusually abundant in the Anchorage area this summer, particularly up in the Chugach Front Range. In fact I am certain that I’ve never seen—or at least noticed—such a wealth of monkshood in my many years of wandering the Chugach Front Range. Not even close.
Perhaps the plant’s remarkable abundance gained my attention because monkshood has been among my favorite Alaskan wildflowers since my first years in the state, way back in the 1970s, because of both its deep rich color and its form.
A couple times late in that decade, I crafted my mom a couple of homemade calendars, using images I’d taken. Among those calendar pictures was a portrait of that deep purplish blue flower, its shape similar to that of a medieval helmet—or the hooded head of a monk, thus the name.
“I absolutely agree,” I replied to Rob. “I really don’t know why but may try and find out.”
In mid-August I posted an image of monkshoods, taken on the slopes below Near Point. In the comment accompanying the picture, I noted that several friends and I have never seen such an abundance of the flowers, adding, “We wonder why this is so. Any suggestions from botanists and other serious ‘native plant people’?”
The posting drew lots of replies, at least by my FB standards. Nearly everyone who commented on their presence agreed this was an unusually prolific year for monkshood and a couple of people shared their own pictures.
Dennis Ronsse with the Alaska Native Plant Society (and in my experience, a person with enviable plant expertise) offered an explanation: “Bill, my guess is the weather, monkshood is known to prefer well-drained evenly moist humus-rich soils, like we have in meadows of the Western Chugach. The cool rainy growing season we’ve had this year might have been a factor in making a great year for them. Also, the heavy snow last winter stayed unusually long into summer, slowly melting with cool temps, often overcast, maybe contributed to evenly moist soil. That is just a guess.”
Marilyn Barker, one of Alaska’s premier botanists, agreed with Ronsse and added, “Timing is everything.”
I concur, weather had to be an important factor. It makes intuitive sense to me, a person who pays attention to wildflowers and other plants but doesn’t have any botanical expertise of Dennis and Marilyn.
Still, I wonder if weather—and the timing of warm and cool spells, wet and dry periods—alone can explain this year’s astonishing “display” of monkshoods (which is now on the wane, as summer turns toward fall), particularly in Front Range meadows. It seems something else might be at play, maybe something we humans aren’t able to notice or sense. It strikes me as a kind of lovely mystery.
In my attempts to learn more, I conducted an online search. And though I didn’t find anything to help explain this year’s proliferation of monkshoods, I found an enormous amount of information about the plant’s poisonous nature (something that a few people commented upon in my FB post).
This is one of the things I love about nature writing—and the research that informs these columns and other writings: the education that I get, the deepening of my own knowledge (and sometimes, wisdom), some of which I can pass along to readers.
For starters, monkshoods belong to the genus “Aconitum” which is (according to my sources), a Latin word that means “poisonous plant,” and is in turn derived from the Greek “akoniton,” which can be translated as “wolfbane.” More about the latter name in a bit.
The most important thing to know is that all of the monkshood plant is highly toxic to people (and apparently many other animals) when ingested, because it contains a variety of alkaloid toxins, the primary one being aconitine, reflected in the flower’s scientific name. Though all parts contain the poison, the monkshood’s roots are said to be especially toxic.
Ingestion of the plant may cause nerve paralysis, low blood pressure, abdominal distress (including diarrhea and vomiting) ventricular arrhythmia, and in the extreme, heart failure and death. According to at least one online site, “just three grains of the root will kill a hefty adult.” Whether that’s true I can’t say, but you get the point.
It’s also reported that even skin contact may cause harm, by resulting in paresthesia, a tingling or burning sensation or numbness that may spread to other parts of the body. Some online resources go as far as recommending gardeners wear gloves when handling the plant. Physical contact doesn’t seem to bother bumblebees and other insect pollinators and I’m unsure about dogs and other mammals, which of course have fur to protect their skin.
It turns out that the monkshood plant which is native to Alaska, northwestern Canada, and eastern Siberia has a close relative, Aconitum napellus, that inhabits much of Europe and is commonly known as—you may have guessed it—wolfbane. And this is where many of the stories of Aconitum’s legendary deadly nature come from.
My sources—which include the websites of Alaska photographer-writers Lee Petersen and Robin Barefield, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude (and who, in turn, depended on other references)—indicate that in Greek mythology, aconitum was produced by “the slobber of the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hell, Cerberus.” I suppose it figures that such a deadly toxin would have such hellish origins.
Across time, people have used the plant’s poisonous nature to kill wolves (thus the wolfbane moniker) and other animals; according to Barefield, Alaska’s Alutiiq people used a poison made from the roots “to tip the darts and spears they used to hunt humpback and minke whales.” The Inupiat people also reportedly sometimes used the poison in their hunts.
Not surprisingly, given human nature, the plant has been used to poison people as well, usually by mixing it into food or drink.
In medieval times, it was also employed in the battle against the werewolves that roamed the landscapes—or at least the imaginations—of European communities. According to Petersen, “It was even used to ‘treat’ lycanthropy, or werewolfism, often leading to the death of the patient.”
Which leads to another point: in some cultures, the parts of Aconitum plants have been used for medicinal purposes. Petersen comments that its therapeutic effects were especially employed “in traditional Chinese medicine” but other societies used it as well “to treat pain and fever. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, aconitine was even available in pharmacies. Typically the roots would be processed by soaking and boiling to reduce the alkaloid content.” But because it was challenging to get the dosage right, “the use of monkshood as a medicine frequently leads to accidental poisoning.”
So don’t try this at home.
Lots more can be found online (and presumably in other references) about the plant’s poisonous nature and its place in numerous cultures and mythologies. Here I’ll return to the nature of Alaska’s monkshoods, which to my eyes—and those of many others—are beautiful flowering plants that can be admired at a safe distance.
The species—also called larkspurleaf monkshood according to iNaturalist and some other sources—occurs throughout much of the state, in habitats that range from woodlands to subalpine meadows to moist swales in high alpine tundra.
A member of the Ranunculacae or Buttercup family, it grows from “tuberous” roots, with a slender stem that may reach one to four feet high (and sometimes higher in coastal areas). Its leaves are described in a variety of ways, including “palmately lobed”—or roughly hand-shaped—with each of those five narrow lobes themselves further divided into three smaller lobes, or parts.
The hood- or helmet-shaped flowers are scattered along the stem above the leaves and may appear blue or purple or just about any shade in between, depending on the light conditions. More rarely the flowers are white.
The monkshood’s shape and striking colors help set it apart from other flowers and draw attention—at least this person’s attention—wherever it blooms. This year it seemed to blossom early and abundantly and it’s been a pleasure to appreciate the flower’s unusual (and I would say, extraordinary) abundance in many of Front Range places I frequent, from valley bottoms to high alpine ridges. Up in the mountains, it has without question added to the glory of the summer.
Anchorage nature writer and wildlands/wildlife advocate Bill Sherwonit is a widely published essayist and the author of more than a dozen books, including “Living with Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey” and “Animal Stories: Encounters with Alaska’s Wildlife.” Readers wishing to send comments or questions directly to Bill may do so at akgriz@hotmail.com
