Beautiful poison on the vine

My friend and I found these exotic seeds on a fence near our vacation spot in Florida this month. We later discovered that, like many beautiful things in nature, the seeds are a deadly poison.

In my yearly winter trips to the sunny south, I have learned that sun-drenched climates attract more than tourists to their tropical shores.

Last year, I wrote a story about the boa constrictors that have been turned loose to grow into a huge, invasive species in the warm waters of the Everglades.

This year, I stumbled upon another ominous import to this land of warm beaches and alligator-infested swamps.

Beneath the waving palms lurks a seemingly innocent vine, which twines its small leaves around brush and fences throughout the southern part of the state.

Walking on a secluded dog walk at the back of a Ft. Myers RV park, I was taking my usual photos of water birds, gathered around the lake, when my friend and I noticed a flash of red nearby. Upon closer scrutiny, we discovered a seed pod hanging from a unobtrusive vine.

I love to get shots of the flora and fauna of new regions, so I'm always watching for unusual flowers.

However, having lived in the poison ivy-infested woods of southeast Missouri, I'm always cautious about what I touch, so I handled these pods by the stem.

I took a photo with the intention of checking with my Florida gardener friend, Lila Steinhoff, wife of my fellow blogger, Ken Steinhoff. I felt sure she could identify my mysterious plant.

However, before I could post the colorful photo on Facebook, I saw one of the strangest news reports I've ever seen! Local WINK News in Ft. Myers, Florida reported about the arrest of a local 19-year-old boy who had tried to sell a poison drink of some kind to an undercover FBI agent online.

Low and behold, they described the poison as abrin, a toxin that is more potent than its relative ricin by almost two orders of magnitude.

The black and red seeds are also called jequirity seeds, Rosary peas, Crab's Eye, John Crow beads, Indian licorice or Jumbie beads.

When I shared my photo with Lila, she identified them immediately and said that the beads had once been used in jewelry; however, some of the jewelers had died, when they got the juice in a cut.

In researching the topic, I saw photos of women wearing gloves to make jequirity seed bracelets. And, in fact, I discovered that in March, 2012, there was a recall of these bracelets. I've seen them online, and they are certainly beautiful.

It would seem that if an animal, such as a raccoon, swallows the seeds whole, they will pass through the intestinal tract with no harmful effects.

However, the ingesting of one seed is enough to kill a human being.

The young Florida man who tried to sell the poison told his prospective buyer that there would be no way for a doctor to determine the cause of death for someone who had been given the poison.

It would be "the perfect murder."

He now sits in jail and is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison, all because of his misuse of a little tropical seed that is now considered a weapon of terrorism.