Memory Alpha
Register
Advertisement
Memory Alpha
Borgia Plant

A piece of borgia plant

For the Human family with a similar name, please see Borgia.

The borgia plant was a poisonous plant native to planet M-113. Library record tapes listed it as a carbon group 3 vegetation similar to the Earth nightshade family, containing an alkaloid poison with a chemical structure common to most M-class planets. It was not familiar to Starfleet officers, such as James T. Kirk.

In 2266, the M-113 creature, while physically disguising itself as Nancy Crater, blamed Crewman Darnell's death on his ingestion of a borgia plant. However, Spock discovered that peculiar red mottling on Darnell's face was not among the symptoms of borgia plant poisoning. Doctor McCoy subsequently assured Captain Kirk that Darnell could not have died of alkaloid poisoning. (TOS: "The Man Trap")

The "nightshade" in question is probably the deadly nightshade, a plant that contains the toxic alkaloid atropine, as there are many harmless nightshade plants.
The borgia plant may take its name from the Borgia family, the most infamous of whom, Lucrezia Borgia, was rumored to own a hollow ring that she regularly used to poison drinks.
In the final draft script of "The Man Trap", the borgia plant was described as "a twisted, scabrous looking piece of vegetation."
Advertisement