Melanie-Jayne Howes
Melanie-Jayne Howes, Senior Research Leader at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is an expert in natural product chemistry, pharmacognosy and bioactive molecules. At Kew, she researches the chemistry of plants and fungi to understand the scientific basis for their uses, particularly those used for medicines, food and human health, and leads a team of scientists investigating plant and fungal chemistry and bioactivities. She is also a Chartered Chemist and a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, King’s College London, UK. She has over 80 publications on the chemistry and bioactivities of plants and their chemical constituents, including the Kew Pocketbook on Poisonous Plants (2024), co-written with Eliot Jan-Smith.
Oldest arrow poison
Poisonous arrowheads dating back some 60,000 years, and bearing alkaloids from the poison bulb or candelabra flower (Boophone disticha), have been found at Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The arrow tips were small, shaped flints known as “microliths”, and would have been used as part of hunting weapons. Details of the find were announced in a research paper published in the journal Science Advances on 7 January 2026.
The discovery dramatically extends the known history of poison-arrow use back to the Late Pleistocene era (c. 129,000–11,700 years ago). Previously, the oldest such artifacts were thought to be bone-tipped arrows bearing toxic glycoside residues, which were uncovered in an Egyptian tomb and dated to c. 4,000–4,400 years ago, during the mid-Holocene period.
Part of the Amaryllidaceae family, B. disticha has long been used in medicine (in reduced doses) and rituals, as well as for arrow poison. The plant is indigenous to southern Africa, from the Cape to Kenya. Its other common names include the century plant, tumbleweed and windball.