http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/poison/poison.htm This java search engine may help you. It lists poisonous plants in NC- by leaves, berries, toxicity, etc. It also allows you to state where the plant can be found. Good luck!

Why don't you just let a snake bite him? LOL!

I don't understand why it can be placed anywhere. Does that mean you will include the region as well? Many plants while not indigenous to their areas are expected to be in certain places and not others. Readers will pick up on that kind of thing.

See the attached list of 'extremely toxic' plants. Not all will be found in the Southern US, but YOU have to do that research!!! You might want to consider mushrooms, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: toxic plants

[quote]I don't understand why it can be placed anywhere. Does that mean you will include the region as well? Many plants while not indigenous to their areas are expected to be in certain places and not others. Readers will pick up on that kind of thing.[/quote] Yes, I'm well aware of that. I say it doesn't matter because I can alter the setting in the novel for this particular scene. It doesn't matter where it happens, therefore I can make it happen wherever is necessary for logic purposes. Not all writers are lazy hacks.

Thank you, SurrealGarden and rhizo_1 for the the links. Rhizo_1, yes, I'm well aware that I have to do the research. Sigh. Nice exclamation marks there, by the way.

If the region is not important, you could always have an exotic import that escaped from someone's green house and naturalized. there must be something somewhere in the world that would work.
Frog

I want you to know that I am totally intrigued by your question, and was only teasing you. The GardenWeb is a great place for ideas, history, folklore, facts, and fiction!!!

I'd think that the opportunties for fast acting, deadly plants would be greater in the rainforest regions of the world. However, according to the attached fun link, Castor bean ranks as the most deadly plant! Rosary Bean comes in second.

Here is a link that might be useful: World's Deadliest Plants

Dang it! There are those exclamation points, again.

An old gothic novel, Dragonwyck, used oleander for something similar.

Oleander isn't all that deadly. It might make a small child sick enough to die, but an adult would have to get a lot of the sap into his system for it to be fatal. Yucky ill maybe, but not dead unless he was sickly to begin with. The Castor Bean could be a winner. Is he to pick it off the bush and eat it, or can it be mixed up in his food?
Frog

An interesting question. I've been thinking about it off and on since I first read it and didn't have anything to offer, but I just now ran across this. Scroll down to the bottom, and read the info on curare and rhubarb.

Here is a link that might be useful: curare and rhubarb

Castor bean plant. Ricin is the toxic poison in the seeds/beans.

Perhaps the character in the story could eat something and have an allergic reaction to it and die? Or he could eat something he thought he was not allergic to which looked similar to something that he was.
~just a thought
~~SJN

Texas has 230 commonly grown plants that are poisonous not including the native ones ..which includes the common morning glory

I got to thinking about water hemlock, I've seen it growing here, ran across another page you might find informative.

Here is a link that might be useful: poisonous plants

There was a case a few years ago in which a teenager was at a camp or something vacationing. She and a friend chewed on hemlock thinking it was wild parsley. The friend just felt funny for a while but the other girl died. The people at the camp didn't take it seriously, otherwise she might have gotten to a hospital in time. But I think after they realized how bad it was and got an ambulance, she died on the way to the hospital.

ooooh, I have an obsession with poisonous plants.
Fly poison...The bulb is super poisonous & looks like an onion
False hellebore (veratrum viride) - all of it is poisonous but I'm not sure anyone could eat more than a couple bites. I think you'd have to stew it or something
Water-hemlock - it's related to carrots.
I found the first two all over the place in the southern Appalachians. The last one grew in a stream in my yard in Asheville, NC.
Oh yeah, and definitely rhubarb!

If you want the person to die very quickly, send him out to pick mushrooms.

Lily of the Valley is one of the most toxic garden plants grown. The type you see in gardens isn't native, but it's all over the eastern US, including lots of the southeast. It's a very persistent and long-lived plant, often thriving around old homesites long after the house is gone. It likes shady nooks and produces a good looking berry that a city slicker or someone foolish enough to ingest unknown food might find attractive enough to eat.

Soeur

Actually, mushrooms are a GREAT choice since you say the character should die but nothing happens. So many mushrooms that are poisonous look like those that aren't.

Well, quidscribis - how did your character die?

"Rosary Pea" is highly toxic, interesting looking (the pea itself), and has an exotic name. I definitely have seen them growing. Kids would (it was rumored in my youth) use them dry from the wild in pea shooters and even swallow them accidentally without harm, but if chewed you courted death, not just sickness.

http://www.vet.purdue.edu/depts/addl/toxic/plant53.htm

Much more is available on the Net.

OOOOOH, and it's got a sort of mystical quality about it. I wonder where the OP went?