I saw the thread title and wondered what "the Punslinger" had been up to now!
The article linked to the original post is fascinating. Truly a Fortean phenomenon. If there is no transfer of genetic information, then it surely means that the vine has "senses" beyond our present understanding of plants.
I have so far found no online references for the "just a minute vine" or for any legends of US soldiers being trapped by fast growing vines.
A quick search led me to the
kudzu vine which grows at a foot (30cm) a day, and can engulf any parked car, shed, dead body etc. left in its path for more than a few days. The kudzu vine is an invasive species to the USA and has been called, dramatically, "the vine that ate the south".
I found this quote:
- ''It'll climb on you if you stand there all day,'' says Jim Montgomery, executive vice-president of the Southern Forest Institute.
Some plant nurseries advertise the fastest growing vine as the
silver lace vine,
Fallopia baldschuanica, which is known by several common names including "
the mile a minute vine" — which is a gross exaggeration as it only grows around 12 feet (< 4metres) a year, or a foot (30 cm) a month. Pah! My lawn does that. Show me a centipede that grows a foot a month and I'll be interested.
For comparison, bamboo can grow 1 mm every 90 seconds, or something just under a metre in 24 hours.
The idea of a vine growing so fast that it could engulf a soldier who stood still for a few minutes (maybe a sentry, or someone bivouacing in the forest) sounds fanciful. It creates a B movie image of a helpless soldier struggling desperately as he is subsumed into the plant.
Common sense says that any vine that grew that fast would cover and choke the entire jungle very quickly. I'm no biologist or physicist, but a common sense consideration of the plant's energy budge and rate of growth would suggest that it would be impossible.
I'd provisionally put the "just a minute vine" on the pile marked
myth.
Perhaps the myth was promoted by the horrendously terrifying conditions that young conscripts faced in that dreadful war. It may have been contributed to by the morbid humour of older more experienced soldiers, or by young sentries panicking on long dark nights, or perhaps by finding the bodies of fallen comrades already partly covered by vines. It is even conceivable that Vietcong fighters may have deliberately created fear by leaving the corpses of captured and killed US soldiers entangled in the vines. Who knows?
Kudzu vine images:
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