Aconitum carmichaelii

Aconitum carmichaelii is a flowering plant of the buttercup family, native to China and northern Vietnam, and known in English as Chinese aconite, Carmichael's monkshood or Chinese wolfsbane. In Chinese the lateral root is fùzǐ, "daughter root", and the tuberous mother root is wūtóu, "black head". The Japanese name, torikabuto, means "bird-hat", after the ceremonial headdress worn by the miko, the shrine maidens, in the kagura dance. It is an erect perennial that grows to about 1.2 metres tall, with leathery leaves cut into three to five lobes and dense panicles of blue flowers in late summer and autumn. It is grown in gardens, where the cultivars 'Arendsii' and 'Kelmscott' have won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. Every part of it is extremely toxic, and it was once used as an arrow poison. Taken internally without proper preparation by a trained person, it can kill.