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Fortean Plants (Carnivorous; Including Man-Eating Plants)

riverfern said:
quote]I saw one such plant in an old....tarzan movie I believe.
It was more of a large bulb like plant that looked like a very large flower on the ground,but when stepped on it would immediatly close its petals upward into a bulb shape and engulf the person until digested.

Wasn't there something like that in 'Jumanji' too?

Now you mention it yeah there was. The description is different, but the concept is the same!!

Good thinking!![/quote]
 
The one in Jumanji had a tongue like thing that it shot out, bit like a frog. Think there was something similar in an old Star Wars comic. And of course the Little Shop of Horrors had a man eating plant.
 
Semyaz said:
I've found something else about the man-eating tree in a book called Unexplained Phenomena: A Rough Guide Special by Bob Rickard and John Mitchell.
Semyaz, you might like to know - if you didn't already - that Bob Rickard is also the founder of Fortean Times :)

If you did... well... *crawls back into woodwork*
 
ttaarraass said:
Semyaz said:
I've found something else about the man-eating tree in a book called Unexplained Phenomena: A Rough Guide Special by Bob Rickard and John Mitchell.
Semyaz, you might like to know - if you didn't already - that Bob Rickard is also the founder of Fortean Times :)

If you did... well... *crawls back into woodwork*

... reluctantly confessess... no i didnt know that :eek: ... but i am very grateful for finding out...much appreciated thank you :D
 
Or did people here know that at the New Scientist gift shop there is a link to a place where you can order a package full of seeds for assorted meat-eating plants? Sadly there seems to be no man-eating ones between them. Though perhaps if you have green fingers you could get them big enough to be mouse eating.
 
I found this further description by Carle Liche on a similar thread to this on another website.

which he described as; similar to a pineapple, only 8 feet tall with 8 leaves hanging from its apex, which were each about 11-12 feet long. (From here on I don't really understand the description given) "A clear treacly liquid with high intoxicating properties trickled into a pair of concave plates arranged one inside the other. These comprised the apex of the tree, and from beneath the rim of the bottom plate a series of hairy green 2.5 metre(8 foot) long tendrils stretched out in every direction. Above these, six extremely thin tentacle-like feelers, each over 1.5 metres (5-6 feet) long and white in colour, reared up to the sky, twisting and twirling incessantly like sinister serpents".

Source: Unexpained Mysteries Discussion Forums

Apparently the poster got it from "Atlas of the Unexplained" by Carl Shuker.

This report of the man-eating tree comes from Madagascar, which, as some of the other poster on the above mentioned thread mentioned, has been (pretty much) fully explored and no such tree has been found... at least that we know of... ;)

However, I feel that it does not discount reports from other, relatively unexplored areas from around the world, ie parts of Africa, and parts of the Amazon.
 
Semyaz said:
riverfern said:
quote]I saw one such plant in an old....tarzan movie I believe.
It was more of a large bulb like plant that looked like a very large flower on the ground,but when stepped on it would immediatly close its petals upward into a bulb shape and engulf the person until digested.

Wasn't there something like that in 'Jumanji' too?

Now you mention it yeah there was. The description is different, but the concept is the same!!

Good thinking!!
And Little Shop of Horrors! ;)
 
And George of the Jungle!

Oh, c'mon, the cartoon? Jay Ward? Theme song covered by Weird Al? Elephant named Shep (George and Shep agree that Shep's a dog)? Shapely redheaded female companion referred to by George as "long-haired guy who never shave?" Gorilla companion with an Oxford accent, or at least an American's idea of one?

Anyway, in the title sequence of the cartoon George gets gobbled up by a big Audrey-II like plant which thrashes around in time to the music as he fights it from the inside and finally is forced open. The man-eating plant meme is out there, somewhere. When I read Shukar's book I recognized the description immediately as the one from George and having the image added interest to the story of its origin. I have no idea how cryptofaunally inclined Ward was, but suspect he got the image out of a movie, probably the Tarzan one mentioned.
 
PeniG said:
And George of the Jungle!

Gorilla companion with an Oxford accent, or at least an American's idea of one?
In the film version the gorilla was played by John Cleese.
 
I'm quite interested in Cryptobotany as I'm a plant scientist. Plants that eat people in the manner depicted by the Ya-te-veo are not really credible. I suppose it's possible that as some of the larger carnivorous plants can consume small mammals, it's feasible that ones could grow large enough to trap much larger ones, and that an unfortunate person could fall victim to such a thing. Problem with that theory is that small mammals and flies particularly are very numerous, but larger animals are not. But on the other hand a single meal for the plant could last a looong time. Perhaps such things existed in the distant past, or perhaps in the deepest parts of the jungle such they still do. I would love it if this were the case. Sadly cryptobotany seems to be approached so rarely in comparison to the more appealing zoology.

Incidentally the Ya-te-veo appears in J W Buel's "Land and Sea" and is depicted thus...

The_ya-te-veo02.jpg
 
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Killer plant 'eats' great tit at Somerset nursery

A plant has killed and "eaten" a great tit at a garden nursery in Somerset.
Nurseryman Nigel Hewitt-Cooper, from West Pennard, was inspecting his tropical garden when he discovered one of his pitcher plants had trapped the bird.
He said he was "absolutely staggered" to find it had caught the creature.

It is believed to be only the second time such a carnivorous plant has been documented eating a bird anywhere in the world.
"I've got a friend who's studied these particular plants extensively in the wild and he's never found evidence of any of them having caught birds," said Mr Hewitt-Cooper.
"The other documented time was in Germany a few years ago and that was in cultivation, not in the wild.
"The larger ones frequently take frogs, lizards and mice, and the biggest ones have been found with rats in them, but to find a bird in one is pretty unusual."

The pitcher plant is a genus of Nepenthes from South East Asia which attracts and traps insects in a pool of liquid which it then digests.
Mr Hewitt-Cooper said he thought the blue tit had been attracted to the plant on Saturday by the insects and landed on its leaf.
"I think it must have leant in to pluck out an insect that was floating on the fluid inside, tipped in too far and become wedged and unable to get out."

Mr Hewitt-Cooper has been growing carnivorous plants such as pitcher plants, Venus fly traps and sundews for 30 years, and has won several gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-14416809
 
rynner2 said:
Killer plant 'eats' great tit at Somerset nursery

A plant has killed and "eaten" a great tit at a garden nursery in Somerset.
Nurseryman Nigel Hewitt-Cooper, from West Pennard, was inspecting his tropical garden when he discovered one of his pitcher plants had trapped the bird.
He said he was "absolutely staggered" to find it had caught the creature.

It is believed to be only the second time such a carnivorous plant has been documented eating a bird anywhere in the world.
"I've got a friend who's studied these particular plants extensively in the wild and he's never found evidence of any of them having caught birds," said Mr Hewitt-Cooper.
"The other documented time was in Germany a few years ago and that was in cultivation, not in the wild.
"The larger ones frequently take frogs, lizards and mice, and the biggest ones have been found with rats in them, but to find a bird in one is pretty unusual."

The pitcher plant is a genus of Nepenthes from South East Asia which attracts and traps insects in a pool of liquid which it then digests.
Mr Hewitt-Cooper said he thought the blue tit had been attracted to the plant on Saturday by the insects and landed on its leaf.
"I think it must have leant in to pluck out an insect that was floating on the fluid inside, tipped in too far and become wedged and unable to get out."

Mr Hewitt-Cooper has been growing carnivorous plants such as pitcher plants, Venus fly traps and sundews for 30 years, and has won several gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-14416809


So the plant ate the bird in the same way that you could say a well ate a man who fell in it?
:shock: :lol:
 
McAvennie_ said:
rynner2 said:
Killer plant 'eats' great tit at Somerset nursery

A plant has killed and "eaten" a great tit at a garden nursery in Somerset.
Nurseryman Nigel Hewitt-Cooper, from West Pennard, was inspecting his tropical garden when he discovered one of his pitcher plants had trapped the bird.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-14416809


So the plant ate the bird in the same way that you could say a well ate a man who fell in it?
:shock: :lol:
Not the same way, no. The plant will digest the bird to help its own growth, but a well gets no benefit from a man who's fallen in. ;)
 
At the weekend I bought some old books, including a couple of lovely bound editions of magazines. One has an account of a ceremonial sacrifice of a woman to a carnivorous tree in Madagascar. If anyone's interested I'll scan and post it. Sadly there's no illustration.
 
Yes, please!

I've read the rather thorough debunking (by Roy Mackal, IIRC) of the story, but it would be really nice to have the complete story for my CryptoBotany collection....

EDIT: Shuker, not Mackal!
 
I've got this story too in a book called 'Maneaters' it's in a sort of and finally section at the end.
 
I had no idea such a plant existed:

RHS 'sheep-eating' plant about to bloom in Surrey

A South American plant with a 10ft (3m) tall flower spike is about to bloom in a Surrey glasshouse for the first time since it was planted 15 years ago.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) at Wisley said the Puya chilensis, a native of Chile, would bloom in the next few days and last about a week.

In the Andes it uses its sharp spines to snare and trap sheep and other animals, which slowly starve to death.

The animals then decay at the base of the plant, acting as a fertiliser. ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-22967160

Mods - feel free to move or merge this - I couldn't find a suitable niche for it. Thanks.
 
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I knew that carnivorous plants existed but not that they came in XXXL sizes.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-22967160

I could play all day in my green cathedral.

RHS 'sheep-eating' plant about to bloom in Surrey
19 June 2013

A South American plant with a 10ft (3m) tall flower spike is about to bloom in a Surrey glasshouse for the first time since it was planted 15 years ago.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) at Wisley said the Puya chilensis, a native of Chile, would bloom in the next few days and last about a week.

In the Andes it uses its sharp spines to snare and trap sheep and other animals, which slowly starve to death.

The animals then decay at the base of the plant, acting as a fertiliser. ...
 
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"I'm really pleased that we've finally coaxed our Puya chilensis into flower," said horticulturalist Cara Smith, shortly before she slipped and fell onto its spines and decayed at its base."

RIP Cara. :(









I made the last bit up. :)
 
I'd never heard of one of these before, I'd always thought that there should be something like this out there, and now I find that there is. Not only that but there's one twenty minutes drive from me. Thanks for posting that.

That's made my day.
 
I already posted this in a new Carnivorous Plants thread.
 
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