The World’s Most Monstrous Plants
OSGF
While we love plants here at Oak Spring, we also believe that they deserve our complete respect. For thousands of years, humans have been discovering what happens if you get on the wrong side of a defensive plant: with names like Devil’s Snare, Deadly Nightshade, and Wolfsbane, the proof is in the nomenclature. Their thorns and poisons work into the depths of our imaginations, dredging up our fear and fascination with the wild places of the world, and inspiring some of our most frightening stories.
To celebrate Halloween, we are listing ten of the most monstrous plants we could think of: some definitely fiction, some that are very real, and several that are somewhere in between.
Scroll through the list below - if you dare.
Buel, James William (1887). Sea and Land: An Illustrated History of the Wonderful and Curious Things of Nature existing before and since the Deluge. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Man-Eating Tree
In 1874, the New York World re-published a sensational account from a German magazine in which botanist Karle Leche described witnessing members of a tribe in Madagascar sacrifice a woman to a tree resembling a “pineapple eight feet high,” complete with strangling, snake-like tendrils that dragged her into a well of sap.
The story was later found to be a hoax (neither the Madagascar tribe or Karle Leche ever existed), but not before it inspired several real scientists to mount unsuccessful expeditions in search of the terrifying arbor. Tales of man-eating plants in Central and South America circulated from other European explorers around the same time - fancies of a colonial society obsessed with otherization and gothic horror.
English School. Album of Garden Flowers. Shroton House, Dorset. 18th century. Folio #104. From OSGF library.
Deadly Nightshade (Bella donna)
Few plants in human history have a worse reputation than deadly nightshade, which has appeared time and again in our stories as a fashionable way to poison one’s enemies. Supposedly, ancient Roman soldiers started the trend by lacing their arrows with a paste made from the plant, while in Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth, the Scottish army defeats the Danes by contaminating their liquor with nightshade poison. It has also been used for centuries as a way to dilating pupils, first for cosmetic purposes by Renaissance ladies (hence the name belladonna, Italian for “beautiful woman”), who learned the hard way what would happen if they were too liberal with the poisonous beauty aid, and today by ophthalmologists. While the entire deadly nightshade plant is poisonous (and you should definitely keep pets and children away if you see its pretty black berries glistening in your yard,) it is not quite as sinister as history suggests. In fact, compounds found in belladonna are still used today as ways to reduce spasms and motion sickness, as well as antidotes for certain poisons.
Credit Des Colhoun via Wikimedia Commons
Giant Hogweed
Recently federally listed as a noxious weed in Virginia, there is, unfortunately, nothing fictional about this plant’s horrifying properties. An invasive species from Eurasia originally brought stateside for ornamental use, giant hogweed resembles pretty, harmless species like Queen Anne’s Lace, but is covered in a phototoxic sap that makes the skin extremely vulnerable to UV light. When the sap reacts with sunlight, it can result in severe burns, blisters, and possible permanent blindness if it gets into the eyes.
While hogweed isn’t as big of a concern in Virginia as in other states, it has been found growing at a private home in nearby Clark County. It you spot it, report it immediately!
“Opium Poppy” French School, 1819. See it on our Google Arts and Culture page.
Opium Poppy
This red flower may look innocent, but it has had truly monstrous effects on many human lives throughout history. Opium, the basis for many illegal and prescription drugs today, comes from a milky fluid found in unripe poppy seed pods. Archaeologists believe humans discovered the pain-relieving, euphoria-inducing properties of opium before written history, as poppy images have been found on prehistoric artifacts in the middle east. Opioids work by blocking pain receptors in the brain, making them among the most effective drugs for relieving severe suffering. However, they are also highly addictive, with fatal overdoses killing tens of thousands of people a year in the United States alone - making opium poppies the scariest plant on this list by far.
Credit CSIRO via Wikimedia Commons
Gympie-gympie
Fortunately for hikers here in Virginia, this stinging tree - one of the most venomous in the world - is Australia’s problem. The gympie-gympie is covered in fuzzy-looking toxic hairs that bury themselves in the skin and produce a sting so painful and long-lasting, it has reputedly driven some victims to suicide (a stinging-tree researcher described the pain as “being burnt with acid and electrocuted at the same time,” even while wearing protective clothing.) While the toxin composition in the gympie-gympie hairs is not well understood, there are some local marsupials that eat its leaves and raspberry-like berries without apparent issue.
Mandrake Painting. French School. Medicinal Plant - Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) Circa 1630. From an apothecary shop in Saumur, France which was destroyed during the French Revolution. From OSGF library.
Mandrake
Millennials will likely recognize this plant as the shrieking, anthropomorphic root from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but mandrake lore dates back long before the advent of fantasy novels. Their bizarre, human-shaped roots, to say nothing of their narcotic and hallucinogenic properties, inspired stories across centuries and cultures, including uses both positive (fertility) and negative (poisoning enemies). Many medieval herbalists wouldn’t dare pick a mandrake without first blocking their ears and tying the plant to a dog, for fear the sound of its scream would kill them without such precautions.
Although most of mandrakes’ monstrousness is rooted in legend, all of its parts are poisonous, like many members of the nightshade family. Modern gardeners, especially those with small children and pets, should take care around the plant (earmuffs aside.)
Credit Galen Parks Smith via Wikimedia Commons
KUDZU
While not as poisonous or creepy-looking as some plants, kudzu is perhaps the most dangerous plant on this list in terms of environmental impact. Southeastern farmers in the 1950s were encouraged to plant this invasive Japanese species in order to fight soil erosion. Since then, Kudzu has achieved no small degree of notoriety as “the vine that ate the South,” smothering other plants and trees in a thick carpets of leaves like some alien horror from a science fiction movie. It has been covering the Southeast at the astonishing rate of about 50,000 baseball fields per year, and is resilient in the face of droughts and low-nitrogen areas. Research has also shown that it also impacts the soil’s ability to sequester carbon, possibly contributing to climate change.
Witch Hazel. Ellen Robbins (American, 1822-1905)
Autumn Leaves of America. Coloured from Nature by Ellen Robbins. Watertown, Massachusetts, Circa 1870. Folio #10. From OSGF library.
Witch Hazel
No plant is better suited for Halloween than witch hazel, which starts putting out its trademark flaming flowers around the end of October and blooms throughout the dead of winter. While the name comes from the old English word wiche (meaning “to bend”) and not a magic-wielding woman, the plant has been used by witches to ward off evil and communicate with spirits, as well as a dowsing rod to find water. Despite the occult associations, the plant is far more useful than it is scary: people have been using witch hazel, which is native to eastern U.S., for centuries to in order to cleanse and heal irritated skin. If you want to try it out for yourself, pick it up at your local drug or grocery store - it is currently one of the only medicinal plants approved by the FDA as a non-prescription drug ingredient.
Credit Rod Waddington via Wikimedia Commons
Dragon’s Blood Tree, or Socotra Dragon tree
This alien-looking succulent isn’t monstrous per se, but it is quite spooky. Legend has it that the tree sprouted from the blood of a slain dragon, due to the deep crimson sap that the tree “bleeds” when wounded. Growing only on the island of Socotra in Yemen, the dragon tree has been a commercially important plant for centuries. The unusual blood-like resin has been utilized for both practical and magical purposes, including a cure-all for gastrointestinal distress, toothpaste, and in ink used to inscribe magical seals. Unfortunately, the future of this unusual tree is uncertain: habitat loss and climate change has had an adverse effect on populations over the past few decades.
Credit KlickingKarl via Wikimedia Commons
Carnivorous Plants
No list of monstrous plants would be complete without Audrey II, the man-eating, florist-tormenting, venus flytrap-esque nightmare from the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors. While Audrey II is fictional, he was inspired by real carnivorous plants, which are quite creepy in their own right. Carnivorous plants, typically found in tropical climates, likely evolved to feed on living things due to the lack of nutrients in their soil. Nepenthes rajah, an endangered pitcher plant native to Borneo, is large enough to trap rats, although it mostly feeds on insects and smaller vertebrae, luring them in with the promise of nectar and drowning them in digestive juices. Now imagine if it were twenty times larger!
Special thanks to assistant librarian Kimberley Fisher at the OSGF library for her research help.