The Gloriosa Lily is the national flower of Zimbabwe. It is also highly toxic. The poison in the flower is colcichine, in small doses used as a medicine for gout sufferers. But one of these flowers ground up and added to (let’s say) a communal fruit smoothy would be enough to kill everyone in a fair-sized village.

With flowers as with femme fatales sometimes that which is most attractive is most dangerous.

I photographed this Gloriosa Lily by placing it on a mirror. The setup used black velvet cloth wrapped around and above the mirror to create a solid black platform and background.