They've been a staple ingredient for horror for centuries - Man-eating plants, body snatchers and mind-controlling monsters, bloodsuckers, and creepy-crawly things that go bump in the night. Plants are the silent members of a league that includes Vampires, Frankenstein, and Werewolves. Strange plant myths have permeated nightmares, literature, television, and film. And why shouldn't they?
You’ve seen last year's installment of Spooky Plants, so here are some more creepy crawling plants to send shivers down your spine!
Parasitophobia is the Fear of Parasites!
Plant Parasites
Fiction is filled with tales of parasitic beings from other worlds like in the movie “Annihilation” (2018), but ours is FILLED with parasitic plants and creatures! Like the Rafflesia Corpse Flower above, these plants live in poor soils or are just adventitious and live off the hard-earned nutrients other plants make.
Strangler Fig seeds germinate on the branches of another, then the roots of the Strangler Fig gradually wrap around the trunk of its host. Over time, it eventually suffocates (strangles) the other tree and then takes its place as it uses the dead tree as scaffolding for itself to climb toward the sun.
- Other parasitic plants include Strangleweed, or Strangle Tare ‘Grass’ (Cuscata), also known as Witches Hair.
- The Christmas favorite, Mistletoe is actually a parasitic vine preying on their host tree.
- If you are lucky to see a spooky white mushroom-looking plant called Ghost Plant/Indian Pipe while hiking in the forest, count yourself lucky! These are beautiful and rare plants to come across here in the US.
Mycophobia is the Fear of Mushrooms!
Creepy Mushrooms!
Some Mushrooms are just plain creepy sounding - Witches Black Butter, Wolf’s Blood, Jelly Babies, Trumpets of the Dead, Devils Cigar, Dead Man’s Fingers, and Starfish Fungus!
There are Jelly Ears that look exactly what they sound like, Little Brain or Brain Mushrooms have folds and are round like an old brain Igor left behind. The Dog Vomit Slime Mold definitely lives up to its name. Green Earth Tongues - yeah, they look just like they sound. Devil’s Fingers look like a ghostly hand coming out of the ground. Black Tree Monster with orange mouth-like openings. Puff Balls that look like alien spore-producing weapons. The Bride Veil is as eerie as it is beautiful and smelly, and the Common Pretty Mouth is anything but pretty!
- The Bleeding Tooth Fungus (Hydnellum peckii) produces a red sticky substance from its pores and looks to be bleeding.
- Deadman's Fingers Fungus have blackish-gray finger-like structures that resemble fingers coming out of the ground.
- Stinkhorns are common fungi here in the US and form stinking slimy-looking tops to attract flies that spread their spores. There are even Octopus Stinkhorn that have long tentacles that are pink to red and can be as smelly as they are strange. The Stinky Squid which is an orange tentacled mushroom with the stench of death.
- Cordyceps Fungi attack many types of insects and ‘zombify’ them! Even some species of snails and slugs can be infected! Entering through their exoskeletons and living inside their bodies until it's time to ‘bloom’ and release their spores. This is when the fungus hijacks the insect's brain and makes them climb to a high area for a bird to eat them and then poop out their spores!
- Many types of Mushrooms have been discovered to be glow-in-the-dark! Called Fox Fire or Faerie Fire, they are filled with an enzyme called luciferase and they glow to attract insects to come spread their spores! Check out the new Firefly Petunia that has been mixed with glowing fungi to create a glow-in-the-dark flowering plant!
Lachanophobia is the Fear of Vegetables!
Talking Plants?
While we love to talk to our plants and it’s been found to be good for them, you’d be shocked if yours talked back to you! Well, plants can communicate without words! Like the movie “Avatar” where the blue aliens can communicate with plants and plants with everything else, plants really can communicate! While not like in Avatar or “The Happening” (2008), plants do communicate!
Sensing vibrations in the air without ears, knowing what's around them without eyes, feeling without nerves…the ways plants interact with the world around them go far beyond the funny sayings about ‘Potatoes having eyes’ and ‘corn having ears’!
Plants in the Tobacco family not only send each other chemical messages through their roots and through the air but also can call in for reinforcements when attacked!
Plant communication includes cries for help, invitations, and warnings in the form of odor molecules that our noses cannot detect. If a Tobacco plant is being eaten by a certain pest, it starts pumping out more nicotine. It then alerts other plants downwind to start producing more natural pesticides (that is what nicotine is really - natural plant pesticide), by way of airborne pheromones or signals through the roots the colony of plants share.
Still being attacked? Send out pheromones that attract that specific pest predator insect - usually a wasp - to come to the rescue! Researchers found that other plants in the area also pick up on these cues and gear up for battle as well!
Pollinated by Hawkmoths, Tobacco plants open their flowers at night. But when those Hawkmoths start laying eggs on their leaves (and start munching away) the plant switches to blooming during the day for hummingbirds instead!
Have Fun This Spooky Season By Learning About Creepy Plants!
Want some scary things to go and see next time you are abroad? Check out the Poison Garden at England’s Alnwick Garden is filled with plants that can kill! Want more Halloween for your garden? Check out Halloween garden ideas, plant Fact and Fiction, and Fact and Fiction: Part 2!
Add a bit of spookiness to your landscape year-round with the help of NatureHills.com!
Spooky Planting!
