Join unique plant enthusiast and lover of the strange, Varla Ventura, for a delightful romp through a botanical wonderland of real plants that seem straight out of a horror novel. From the fetid vampire lily to the corpse flower to the strangler fig, these glorious specimens will haunt your Halloween dreams and inspire your own dark garden. We’ll learn about their names, habits, magic, and medicine along the way too.

Varla Ventura is an author, traveler, rotten botanist, and lover of the strange. She has authored several books on bizarre and freaky things, from paranormal women’s history to werewolves and banshees to plants that smell like death. She is a committed supernaturalist, folklorist, and seeker of those shadowy things that scrape at your window in the night.

Her latest book, Enchanted Plants: A Treasury of Botanical Folklore and Magic, explores the gardens of fairy and folk tales, where plants and their magic and medicine are central to the story. When not writing, she can be found lurking tending her poison garden, and exploring the graveyards and forests in Minnesota.