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Shape-Shifting Vine

Always chuffed to hear of a new fortean plant!

From the article above

"As my blog-buddy Ed Yong described it in 2014, when he wrote about this same plant, it has all kinds of moves: “Its versatile leaves can change their size, shape, color, orientation, even the vein patterns to match the surrounding foliage.” !

which is pretty comprehensive and rather rules out the juvenile/mature or sun/shade variations. :D
 
EnolaGaia said:
Wouldn't this example of dynamic cryptic mimicry represent a golden opportunity to throw the Sheldrake / morphic resonance card?
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Fascinating bloke, who's been amalgamating botanical science and transcendental meditation for decades!

As for the mysterious Boquila, I had no idea that such a weird plant existed until I came across the Nat Geo article by complete accident. I was actually searching for info on the "just a minute" vine which, allegedly, can wrap sticky and / or spiky tendrils around the limbs of unwary humans or animals who stray into its territory. There were some weird but vague reports about this from US soldiers serving in Vietnam.
 
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:
55c8dc39efb57.image_.jpg
195224-049-71D7B03D.jpg
1gQMyk.So.79.jpeg
Kudzu.jpg
 
Mikefule said:
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:
View attachment 14843View attachment 14844View attachment 14845View attachment 14846
Click to expand...

It was a Quora Digest article from around Monday this week, describing the dangers over and above the Viet Kong that US soldiers had to face. Venomous snakes, insects and spiders featured heavily, but there was also a paragraph describing the "just a minute" vine. So-called because a soldier, struggling to disentangle himself from its barbed-wire like coils would typically call on his comrades to wait a minute for him to catch up. The suggestion was that the plant employed some sort of springy reflex action to ensnare its prey - typically rodents, birds or bats, and the creature's frantic struggles would entangle it up even more. The deep cuts and scratches inflicted by the vine on its human victims would apparently sometimes turn septic.
Wish I'd kept the article now, as I can no longer see it on Quora.
 
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PLants can move rapidly - mimosa and venus fly trap. Perhaps not so much /growing/, more like offering a finger to a questing sweet pea tendril and having it visibly start to embrace you over the course of a cup of coffee? Which was a childhood game.
 
Mikefule said:
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:
View attachment 14843View attachment 14844View attachment 14845View attachment 14846
Click to expand...

Would love to see if the Boquila Trifoliolata started turning yellow if it enveloped a school bus!
 
The technical term for its remarkable ability to change its appearance is mimetic polymorphism.
A very few other plants have this ability to a certain degree (Mistletoe for example), but the Boquila Trifoliolata takes this uncanny trait orders of magnitude further.
 
In The Thing, when they were trying to kill it, didn’t it change to a plant at one point during the rapid cycle of changes?

Edit- Ah, the original 50s Thing From Another World…

They take the body, still preserved in a block of ice, back to their Arctic outpost as a blizzard closes in on them. Then, ominously, the body is accidentally thawed, allowing the mysterious creature to escape.

Slowly, the scientists unravel some of the creature's secrets. Although it walks on two legs like a human, the being is actually a type of plant life that's evolved to use blood -- any type of blood -- for reproductive purposes. In his fascination with the creature, Dr. Carrington resolves to save "The Thing" from harm for research purposes.

Then, crew members ominously begin disappearing, and the base's plasma supplies are raided. In a flurry of action, armed men shoot the creature, but it escapes once again, apparently unharmed by the hail of bullets.
Click to expand...

https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/the-thing.htm

What is important here is I was right. As usual :cool:
 
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blessmycottonsocks said:
The technical term for its remarkable ability to change its appearance is mimetic polymorphism.
A very few other plants have this ability to a certain degree (Mistletoe for example), but the Boquila Trifoliolata takes this uncanny trait orders of magnitude further.
Click to expand...
This 2021 paper increases the magnitude (PDF download available, open access):

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15592324.2021.1977530

Boquila is able to imitate plants made of plastic--I'd say the simplest explanation is that Boquila actually sees the other plant, and it even adjusts for the angle of the cloned leaves.
 
Wikipedia says Boquila "bears an edible fruit". No thank you.
 
ChasFink said:
Wikipedia says Boquila "bears an edible fruit". No thank you.
Click to expand...

I would feel a bit guilty about plucking fruit from a plant that watched me doing it!

The whole concept of plant vision sounded totally bonkers to me, but I've just read that the concept of basic vision through plant ocelli - in which the upper epidermal cells of convex leaves cause light rays to converge onto the light-sensitive subepidermal cells, has been around since Austrian botanist Gottlieb Haberlandt first published his paper in 1905 and certainly seems to be gaining traction now.
After all, plants photosynthesise and can move to face the sunlight, so this next step isn't as barmy as it sounds.
The motive or evolutionary driver behind Boquila Trifoliolata's astonishing mimicry - even of artificial objects, remains something of a mystery though. One Boquila "explorer shoot" can mimic two or more other plants if it grows across them and it doesn't even need to be in direct contact. Exactly how short or long-sighted Boquila is though hasn't yet been determined!

Maybe if it went to Specsavers....

specs.png
 
Frideswide said:
PLants can move rapidly - mimosa and venus fly trap. Perhaps not so much /growing/, more like offering a finger to a questing sweet pea tendril and having it visibly start to embrace you over the course of a cup of coffee? Which was a childhood game.
Click to expand...
Do they really do this?

My father used to tell me stories as a child of a plant that grew where he lived as a child that opened and closed it's leaves in response to a person's touch....I don't know if he was telling me fiction or if it really existed though.....
 
Earthly oddity said:
Do they really do this?

My father used to tell me stories as a child of a plant that grew where he lived as a child that opened and closed it's leaves in response to a person's touch....I don't know if he was telling me fiction or if it really existed though.....
Click to expand...
The venus flytrap and the "sensitive plant" Mimosa pudica (both mentioned by @Frideswide) certainly do - the former to catch nutrients, the latter as defense. Despite my brown thumb I have grown both at home. The mechanisms of each are interesting, particularly the flytrap: it must feel two disturbances among the three hairs within a trap to trigger the closure.
 
ChasFink said:
The venus flytrap and the "sensitive plant" Mimosa pudica (both mentioned by @Frideswide) certainly do - the former to catch nutrients, the latter as defense. Despite my brown thumb I have grown both at home. The mechanisms of each are interesting, particularly the flytrap: it must feel two disturbances among the three hairs within a trap to trigger the closure.
Click to expand...

I bought a Venus Fly-Trap many years ago. I kept it nice and humid and warm in the conservatory.
Problem was that the kids wouldn't leave it alone - feeding it little chunks of minced beef on cocktail sticks just so they could watch the "jaws" snap shut.
It stopped responding after a while and I think the poor plant died of exhaustion.
 
ChasFink said:
The venus flytrap and the "sensitive plant" Mimosa pudica (both mentioned by @Frideswide) certainly do - the former to catch nutrients, the latter as defense. Despite my brown thumb I have grown both at home. The mechanisms of each are interesting, particularly the flytrap: it must feel two disturbances among the three hairs within a trap to trigger the closure.
Click to expand...
I don't think it was a venus flytrap, so maybe it was a Mimosa Pudica. Do they grow in India? That's where my father was born/brought up....

The Mimosa Pudica looks very pretty. I can't remember the description my father gave, just the response of the plant.....

I just looked it up on wikipedia - I reckon this might have been what my Dad was talking about....

Or maybe this one...Not as pretty looking, but I think this might be the most likely.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codariocalyx_motorius
 
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blessmycottonsocks said:
I bought a Venus Fly-Trap many years ago. I kept it nice and humid and warm in the conservatory.
Problem was that the kids wouldn't leave it alone - feeding it little chunks of minced beef on cocktail sticks just so they could watch the "jaws" snap shut.
It stopped responding after a while and I think the poor plant died of exhaustion.
Click to expand...
Your description of the poor plant makes me feel quite sorry/mournful for it..........
 
Earthly oddity said:
Your description of the poor plant makes me feel quite sorry/mournful for it..........
Click to expand...

That's exactly how I felt when I saw the poor thing's mouths turning brown and lying flat on the soil!

The kids have flown the coop now and if my local garden centre starts selling Boquila Trifoliolata, I would love to get one, but would have to resist the urge to experiment it to death, forcing it to grow over and emulate all sorts of weird stuff.
 
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I never thought reading a random thread on here would remind me of my father's stories when I was a child and the disappointment I had when I couldn't find the plants he was talking about in the gardens of the UK.....

And I couldn't remember the details. of the plant - but I think I solved the mystery thanks to this thread and a look on wikipedia....
 
ChasFink said:
The venus flytrap and the "sensitive plant" Mimosa pudica (both mentioned by @Frideswide) certainly do - the former to catch nutrients, the latter as defense. Despite my brown thumb I have grown both at home. The mechanisms of each are interesting, particularly the flytrap: it must feel two disturbances among the three hairs within a trap to trigger the closure.
Click to expand...
When I was a nipper in Singapore, there was mimosa all over the garden. Used to go around closing them all up and then start again...well...there was no internet then.
 
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