The Burning Of The Royal Gardens

[Antenora]

Quite possibly. I imagined that it was something like hemlock or belladonna, which are famous poisonous plants. Maybe in a later book Olaf will make use of some poisonous plant.

[Alchemist]

Socrates was sentenced to drink hemlock when a jury found him guilty of corrupting the youth, worshipping false gods, etc.

Belladonna means beautiful lady. Women in olden times used to use them in eye drops to make their pupils dilate, an attractive trait in those days. Some nutter (I forgot his name.) also used it to kill beautiful women, thus the name belladonna.

If anyone else finds famous poisonous plants, I'd be happy to look for its history.

[Antenora]

How about poison sumac? Remember Violet's Sumac knot--which was named after a singer? Sumac is also a poisonous plant; I think it's something like poison oak.

[lilmermaid987]

Right, there was something about the sumac plant in the "Female Finnish Pirates" thread in Sardonic Series.

I looked up some information of my own and look what it says:

Poison ivy, western poison oak, and poison sumac have the poisonous sap (urushiol) in their roots, stems, leaves and fruit. The sap is released when the plant is bruised, making it easier to contract Rhus-dermatitis in the spring and early summer when leaves are tender. The sap may be deposited on the skin by direct contact with the plant or by contact with contaminated objects, such as shoes, clothing, tools and animals. Severe cases have occurred from sap-coated soot in the smoke of burning plants.

(Taken from poisonivy.aesir.com/view/faq.html)

Maybe if the posionous plant was sumac, Olaf was planning to burn it in a fire, causing any survivor to be infected with the sap covered soot, leaving them with some disgusting results.

[i.]

Perhaps the plant is a peppermint plant that Olaf will use againts the Beaulderlaiers.

[Alchemist]

Then why put the plant in the Poisonous Pavillion?

[i.]

I don't know.

[MrBaudelaire]

Wait a second...Justice Strauss' case was about a poisonous plant (and an illegal use of credit cards, but that is irrelevant)

hm....

[Alchemist]

I think Mr. Poe was hiding the plant in his hat. Then he took it home, thus the foul smell of his house.

[Antenora]

MrQuagmire said:

Wait a second...Justice Strauss' case was about a poisonous plant (and an illegal use of credit cards, but that is irrelevant)

hm....

Actually, some have suggested that Olaf was illegally using Mr. Baudelaire's credit card--which he had stolen--or someone else's stolen credit card for that matter, to buy the plant.

[Dante]

sugarhigh said:

I think Mr. Poe was hiding the plant in his hat. Then he took it home, thus the foul smell of his house.

I once thought that, but since have decided not to touch the matter of what was in his hat, as well as the matter of what Olaf wanted the logs for.

I also believe that the plants in the cardboard vase in the Marvellous Marriage included the poisonous plant. Where better to hide it than among other plants?

As Book the Tenth shows, Olaf and others linked to him seem to favour arson as a way of covering up their crimes. Maybe he did steal it. Maybe, as somebody who I can't remember once thought, he bribed somebody working at the Royal Gardens - using the credit card, of course - to let him take the plant. It's probably now at his home, in the tower room - I'm pretty sure that it was in TEE, although it could have been TVV, but the Quagmires stated that for a while, Olaf kept them there. Maybe that's where the reptile collection is, too, including the remains of the Mamba du Mal, which the Esmé Squalor Fan Club probably passed on to him via Esmé. Actually, he's probably president of it, now that I think of it. But what he wants the plant for I do not know. There are some things which can't be guessed - at this moment in time, anyway. Maybe we'll learn more in TGG.

[Alchemist]

If the plant was in the cardboard vase, it has to look like a flower or leaves. Also, it can't smell too bad or the audience and the other actors who are not in Olaf's troupe would have complained.

[kjlsnicket29]

Orangey said:

Welll... it says in another note in the Rare Edition:

"Despite Geraldine Julienne's article in the Daily Punctilio 'No Poisonous Plants Were Removed from Royal Gardens Prior to Deconstruction, Official Fire Department Reports,' I have reason to believe that the poisonous plant Justice Strauss referred to was removed from the Royal Gardens prior to its deconstruction."

So... Count Olaf might have taken that poisonous plant, then wanted to get rid of the rest of the Gardens before people could figure out he took the poisonous plant or for a similar reason. So he burned it, naturally.

But authorities figured this out eventually and landed as Justice Strauss' case.

But there's still a bunch of questions left. Why was the plant so important? And what hotel lobby was the bench put in?

And I just remembered something really random. Justice Strauss had a garden that she tended to. Wow. Ok, anyways...Of course it has to be in the lobby of the Hotel Denouement. Or somewhere else we haven't heard of....but the Hotel Denouement is the most obvious answer.

[Dante]

AnnaKarenina said:

And I just remembered something really random. Justice Strauss had a garden that she tended to. Wow. Ok, anyways...Of course it has to be in the lobby of the Hotel Denouement. Or somewhere else we haven't heard of....but the Hotel Denouement is the most obvious answer.

The BBRE notes also say that the rickety trolley that the Baudelaires took to Briny Beach collapsed soon after, and its remains were recycled into the foundations of a hotel. That's got to be Hotel Denouement - meaning that it's probably the most recent V.F.D. headquarters/safe place built.

[Antenora]

VFD does indeed have a tendency to recycle. The volunteers took that pole from the Vertical Flame Diversion and made it into part of a submarine, most likely the one we'll see in TGG.

And the vaguely useful link du jour: Flower Symbolism.