title: Creating Contrast with Dark Plants
author:  Freya Martin 
description: Dark flowers and foliage can be dramatic components in a garden scheme. Martin suggests an assortment of plants that will contribute bizarre effects, like the odd appearance of the bat flower and the odorous dragon arum, with its black spadix and burgundy spathe. Lush summer color, on the other hand, can be found in tender specimens such as brightly variegated cultivars of coleus; the glowing red blooms of the cardinal flower lobelia; and stunning Bishop of Llandaff dahlias. Plant architecture is considered, with purple-leaved maple trees and the colorful stems of dogwood shrubs. Martin describes the attributes of a range of plants, and offers practical information contained in sidebars advising how and where each plant should be grown. A section on design focuses on splashy seasonal effects. <i>Alice Joyce</i><br /><i>Copyright  American Library Association. All rights reserved</i>
zlib_text:  
   
  For Jaunnie Ginn, with love
  
   
   
  Dark Possession
  
  Chapter One
   Manolito De La Cruz woke beneath the dark earth with his heart pounding, bloodred tears streaking
  his face and grief overwhelming him. A woman's despairing cry echoed in his soul, tearing at him,
  reprimanding him, drawing him back from the edge of a great precipice. And he was starving.
  Every cell in his body craved blood. The hunger raked at him with merciless claws until a red haze
  covered his sight and his pulse hammered with the need for immediate sustenance. Desperate, he
  scanned the area above his resting place for the presence of enemies and, finding none, burst through
  the rich layers of soil, into the air, his heart thundering in his ears, his mind screaming.
  He landed in a crouch in the midst of dense shrubbery and thick vegetation, and took a slow,
  careful look around him. For a moment everything was wrong—monkeys shrieking, birds calling out a
  warning, the cough of a larger predator, even the brush of lizard