Heartbreak Grass

                               

Heartbreak Grass aka Gelsemium Elegans 

Gelsemium Elegans

Poisoning with Gelsemium Elegans: Coma and Respiratory Failure 

Gelsemium Elegans and UK, Surrey 2012

Alexander Perepilichny Poisoned With Heartbreak Grass

Russian businessman and whistleblower Alexander Perepilichny, who collapsed and died in what police believed was an unsuspicious death outside his home in Surrey in 2012 after receiving assassination threats.

Plant toxicology experts found traces of an extremely poisonous species of Gelsemium – a rare plant whose most toxic species is also known as “heartbreak grass” in  Perepilichny’s  stomach 

Gelsemium  poisoning in Britain  puts focus once more on the highly unusual work carried out by the Poison laboratory of the Russian secret services, also known as the Kamera.

Kamera– originally set up by Stalin in 1921 – is to devise “poisonous biological and chemical agents” that will kill or incapacitate their victims in such a way as to make the “death or illness appear natural, or at least to produce symptoms that will baffle doctors and forensic investigators”.

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