The edible blue pods of Decaisnea fargesii earn it the creepy common name of deadman's fingers. After yellow summer flowers fade, the pods appear, dangling off the branches in time for Halloween.

Richie Steffen Just in time for trick-or-treaters, leaves fall to the ground revealing nature's less obvious charms. Threatening thorns, weird fruits and gnarled branches lend a graveyard ambience to the front yard far more effectively than cut-out skeletons. Drizzly, dark and windy autumn days set the stage for cultivating the bizarre, and plenty of plants will oblige.

Even though the pods of Decaisnea fargesii are edible, you might not want to use them to decorate holiday cupcakes, for the plant's common name is deadman's fingers. In summer this bush or small tree has star-like yellow flowers, but come autumn the branches drip with shockingly blue beans. You can just imagine the long, frozen blue pods scratching at the window, clawing at the lock . . .

			Enkianthus campanulatus 'Red Bells' has charms in all seasons but is particularly striking in autumn when its foliage turns to shades of pure gold, orange and red. A slow-growing shrub that reaches only about 5 to 6 feet in a decade, in late spring its graceful branches drip creamy, bell-shaped flowers veined in pink and red. In winter when the leaves drop, the handsome, layered, open form of the shrub is revealed.

Miss Wilmott's ghost (Eryngium giganteum) is a biennial with white, spiny flower heads, uncannily pale and jagged in the moonlight.

You might expect deadman's fingers and Miss Wilmott's ghost to trump a creepy-names contest, but they face a garden full of competition. Stinking hellebore, witch hazel, creeping toadflax, devil's comb, blood sedge, pig's squeak and dead nettle all stir cautious curiosity about the derivation of such common names.

One of my favorite plants is weird-looking year-round. Corokia cotoneaster's hideously snarled branches are its main attribute, or perhaps drawback, depending on your appreciation of the strange. I grow it in a container, for corokia's skinny grayness is easily lost in the landscape; this is a plant to view close up, if you dare. Its tangle of branches looks like a witch's hair after a brisk ride on a broomstick.

Other candidates for witch hair include Robinia pseudoacacia 'Twisty Baby,' which grows to 8 feet tall with crooked stems and curly foliage, and Harry Lauder's walking stick (Corylus avellana 'Contorta'). The latter two are bigger and sturdier with more presence in the landscape than the more delicate corokia.

Sure to raise a shiver are carnivorous plants, native to steamy swamps but sometimes hardy here in not-too-cold winters. Venus flytraps bare rows of teeth that make it clear meat is their meal of choice. The teeth snap shut once an insect gets too close, holding it tight until the bug drowns in the plant's digestive juices. Flytraps can tolerate only light freezes.

Pitcher plants are hardier; I've kept a little colony of Sarracenia flava in a pot the past several winters, and they've proved a hit with neighborhood kids who loved to look down their darkly-veined, narrow throats to see if any flies, ants or wasps were trapped inside. To visit the slightly worrisome world of meat-eating plant fanciers, check out www.carnivorousplants.org.

Dragon arum (Dracunculus vulgaris) smells as if it's lived off spoiled meat for centuries and looks as if it has pushed its way up from the underworld. Black-red hooded flowers and a long black tongue complete the disgusting picture.

Many of the solanums, such as S. pyracanthum, have aggressively sharp thorns thickly lining the stems in contrast to pretty little flowers. These members of the potato family have an air of malevolence that goes far beyond the mere prickly.

Rosa sericea pteracantha has winged, deep-red thorns as sharply pointed as a vampire's incisors. The wicked thorns light up like rubies when the sun hits them.

You can also create quite an effect with the chalky-white arching canes of ghost brambles (Rubus cockburnianus). Surround the skinny, spiny canes with spidery fingers of black mondo grass for a double hit of menace.

So have fun this Halloween by using the last slanting rays of the autumn sun or the luminosity of the harvest moon to light your own spooky garden.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle free-lance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.