Don’t Smoke This Flower, Warns Staff of Popular Anime

Thanks to the anime Lycoris Recoil, an unusually beautiful Japanese flower is gaining media attention on either side of the Pacific: the higanbana[1]. But the love comes with a warning.

It all started when a well-known animator for Lycoris Recoil[2], Ukiashi, posted a striking interstitial (or “eye-catch”) of two characters smoking higanbana on his Twitter account this past week. For context, the show centers on the adventures of an all-female spy force called — you guessed it — the higanbana. 

Known as the red spider lily in English, in Japanese the flower is named after Ohigan — the two-week period straddling the autumnal equinox in September — because the flowers bloom around this time. While higanbana are native to Asia, they have been introduced to the West and can be found in the southeastern United States.

Beyond its associations with autumn, the higanbana is also strongly associated with bad luck, and even death. 

A deadly beauty

For one, the flower is poisonous. As a caption to his illustration, Ukiashi wrote: “Because red spider lilies are poisonous, please don’t try to imitate [this picture]. I just drew these as a form of expression.”[3]

While it may seem obvious not to imitate the picture — and inadvisable to smoke anything not meant to be smoked (or anything at all, honestly) — better to be safe than sorry, no?

Either way, a red spider lily doesn’t have enough poison to kill a human. Thanks to the namesake alkaloid called lycorine in the flower and stem, symptoms upon ingestion include vomiting, drooling, diarrhea, and some mild paralytic effects. For moles and other small animals, though, the flowers can be lethal— hence why they’re often planted in cemeteries to keep these burrowing creatures at bay (although this tactic’s efficacy is debatable[4]). 

Such associations with graveyards and temples, as well as their lethality to our animal friends, contribute to these flowers’ famed aura of death. But higanbana are thought by some to be more dangerous than they actually are. A popular superstition is that your hand will rot away (or worse, you’ll drop dead!) after even picking these flowers. As a result, higanbana are called by a few other names: shibitobana (死人花, “dead person flower”) and jikokubana (地獄花, “the flower of hell”)— inspired partly by the flower’s vivid red color.

And while the flower’s striking appearance adds to its reputation for bringing bad luck to whomever picks it— it’s said that bringing higanbana into your home will cause it to catch fire! — spider lilies actually come in an array of colors. But the white, pink, and yellow varieties don’t come with the same morbid connotations. In fact, white spider lilies are associated with good luck and even Buddha, despite being equally poisonous. And the mythical blue spider lily, thought to have medicinal properties, was popularized by anime as well, this time on Kimitsu no Yaiba.

Since it’s higanbana season, I’ll close with this. Like many things on the internet — no matter how cool it looks, like two ladies smoking death flowers — let’s follow Ukiashi’s advice: don’t try it at home.

What to Read Next