More Plant Monster Stories

This post is brought to you by Strange Adventures by G. W. Thomas. This collection brings together adventure elements with occult detectives, mystery and monsters. What kind of person likes to delve into the strange things lurking in the jungles, mountains and frozen tundra of this world? Sometimes they can be found in Strange Detectives but in that book the setting is often the English country house or city streets of Arkham. In Strange Adventures, the companion volume, the action goes into the snowy alps, the Old West and the modern deserts where the Athenodorians are still at work protecting humankind from the terrible things that want our world. Either book, you are sure to find some chills and thrills as brave men and women face off against what lies in the darkness.

So here are some more of the old stories that feature monsters of a plant variety, all predating John Wyndham’s 1951 classic The Day of the Triffids. The sub-genre of plant monsters goes back to the late 19th century and rumors of flesh-eating plants in South America. The newspapers tended to report this in a less-than-accurate fashion, leading to a crop of killer plant stories from writers as famous as Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells to many less known pensters. Another crop awaits you in this post.

I was not aware until recently that one of the first plant monsters outside of mythology was Dante’s Wood of Suicides. On the Seventh Circle of Hell, people who have killed themselves are turned into gnarled and thorny trees that are tormented endlessly by flying harpies. The twisted shape of the trees represents the unhappy life of the person while the torment is inflicted because suicide is a sin, a spurning of God’s gift of life. While this feels rather mythological, Prometheus and the daily liver-tearing, etc., it is an early plant tale too. (The comic books, in particular, were fond of people turned into nasty trees.) The stories that follow are much newer than Dante…

Triffid Try-Out

“The Grey Weed” (Tom Watson’s Magazine, April 1905) by Owen Oliver ( Joshua Albert Flynn) is an exciting plant versus humanity tale that begins with the usual Wellsian explanation about telling of the disaster after surviving the worst. The narrator introduces Professor Newton, who will ultimately defeat the terror, but he will come along later. The narrator sees the seeds fall in Norfolk Street before helping a family, George and Marian Baker and their nineteen year-old daughter, Viva, to his room to escape the sticky vines that are growing out of the seeds.

They watch from safety as the grey weed climbs up over the first story windows. On it grows, climbing and eventually smashing in the windows. They flee but George and Marian die after the narrator takes Viva to the roof. More fleeing, finding a working elevator they go the basement and survive a while longer. The weed comes and they fee to the cellar. They meet Steel, a card-sharper who proves to be a good friend, saving the narrator several times.

Again they flee, this time into a building next door where they meet Professor Newton. More escapes, while Newton and his new assistant try to figure out the plants’ weakness. Only when there is no where else to flee does Newton try flame. He realizes that the vines have dried out as they grew to the size of trees and knocked down buildings. One exposure to fire and the entire plant dissolves into ash. (As the microbes had done their work in The War of the Worlds, suddenly and with surprise.) The final portion of the tale is how the narrator becomes leader, along with his new bride, Viva, of the remains of humanity. Only one eighth of the world’s population survived, but things are good now.

My first reaction was “wow!” Here is the pace and excitement I like in a tale. Owen Oliver has written the true inspiration for The Day of the Triffids. Like John Wyndham, he builds his story on the bones of H. G. Wells (lets combine the Red Weed and the Martians!), but keeps the story moving. He does a great job of describing the sounds of the weed, which is a scroping sound along with the crushing of bones and flesh. Oliver waits until the final paragraphs to explain what happened and what will happen next. In this short story, the author hits pretty much every beat Wyndham will use at novel length. My biggest surprise is that I haven’t come across this Rival of H. G. Wells until now. If his other stories have the same fun, he should be much better remembered and more widely anthologized. Edmond Hamilton borrowed from him, perhaps unwittingly, in “The Plant Revolt” (Weird Tales, April 1930).

Orchids in England

“Phalaenopsis Gloriosa” (Pearson’s Magazine, July 1906) by John Jason Trent is the first story published by an author who would be much better known as Edgar Wallace. Two men are talking over liquor and cigars, Driscoll and Larcher. Driscoll wants Larcher to join him on a hunt but not of man or beast. Driscoll explains he hired a man named Hearston to tend his vast collection of orchids. The new man and his wife are installed the next day. Mrs. Hearston is a beauty of Indian origin. Neither of the Hearstons care for the Driscoll’s pride and joy, his special greenhouse filled with Phalaenopsis Gloriosa.

A strange encounter at night has Driscoll on edge. He sees a wild-looking man who just as suddenly disappears. When Hearston sends him a letter to bring two policemen on to guard the estate, he complies. All goes well for awhile with Hearston showing his orchid-grooming skills. One night things go awry when Mrs. H is attacked and only saved by Donald, Driscoll’s dog, which dies from a stab wound. Hearston is more anxious after this and Driscoll means to have it out with him. Unfortunately, Mrs. H. disappears and the orchid-tender is driven insane. It is now that Driscoll ask for Larcher’s help.

It’s Larcher’s turn to tell a story. He speaks of Asia, the Mekong Valley and the Lam-nam-si River where the Phalaenopsis Gloriosa come from. These flowers are sacred to the villagers at Kong-Satru and only very brave flower pirates can manage to steal any away from the locals. Once a year, the priests that tend the orchids select a victim, slit their throat and feed the blood to the flowers. This explains everything. The priests have followed the Hearstons to England, since the man has taken their victim away before she can be killed. The men must save her before she is sacrificed. They have help in Hearston, who has escaped from the asylum. They follow him and rescue her. In the fight, a priest is killed and his blood spilled.

The final paragraph of the story: “Multitudes of great white flowers swayed on every stalk, crisp, new blown! Wide open, each petal distended and with eager stems, as happier flowers turn to the sun, they craned their faces towards the dead priest on the floor.”

Wallace does several things here. First he splits his story into several over-lapping pieces. This delays the obvious until the final reveal. This style of ghost story was done expertly by Edward Lucas White in “Lukundoo” (Weird Tales, November 1925) twenty years later. Both stories do this by having a story-within-a story-within-a-story. This allows the final big reveal to end the tale.

The other thing the author does is create a Mystery that has a Horror ending. Wallace will become famous as a writer of “thrillers” or Mysteries under his own name. To tell the same story without the over-lapping would resemble something like Robert E. Howard’s “Scarlet Tears” (Weird Tales, December 1980) where Indian cultists surround a house, wanting some stolen jewels returned, and the brave hero uses muscle and gun to defend. It’s a much more direct and American tale. In Wallace’s tale, the horror of the blood-feeding plants is left mostly to your imagination.

Treasure Island

“Flower Valley” (Switch on the Light, 1931) by J. S. Whittaker is a jungle adventure tale with two men who come to a deserted island looking for treasure. Joe possesses a map created by his partner, Jim, torturing the captain of their ship for the information. The captain’s name was Hook. He laughed as he died, telling Jim that he would be surrounded by beautiful flowers when he died.

Once on Flower Island, the two sailors want to find Flower Valley, where the treasure is hidden. Joe is suspicious of Jim, since both men could have the entire treasure for themselves. They camp since it is late and Joe wakes to find that Jim has copied the map and left. He hurries to catch up in Flower Valley. He finds Jim lying face down on the ground. He is dead, the entire front of his body eaten away. Joe figures ants have done this. He continues into Flower Valley alone.

He finds the treasure but can’t shift it as tree roots hug the box of stolen wealth. Plants sting him until he falls to the ground. At his spot there are lillies growing all around. He remembers the captain’s words about the beautiful flowers as he dies.

Not much new here. H. G. Wells wrote of treacherous treasure-hunters in “The Treasure in the Forest” (Pall Mall Budget, August 23, 1894) and flower-scented doom was seen in “The Orchid Horror” (Argosy, September 1911) and other tales. Whittaker’s characters are despicable and unlikeable. Another bad guy gets eaten by plant tale. This story appeared in one of Christine Campbell Thomson Not at Night anthologies and is his only credit. Thomson used several classics plant monster stories from the pages of Weird Tales. This one was original to her sixth collection and was not reprinted.

Prehistoric Plant

“Dorner Cordaianthus” (Grim Death, 1932) by Hester Holland Gorst has two friends, one a Paleobotanist named Dorner. It is Dorner’s greatest wish to find a prehistoric seed that can germinate. His friend, the narrator, chides him that this is like finding a sleeping dinosaur. But Dorner does succeed, brings the seed home and raises it carefully under conditions similar to those on Earth at the time of the plant’s creation. The seed resembles a giant maggot.

The seed sprouts, and again, the narrator says it looks like a worm. The plant grows rapidly into a hideous thing:

…The Cordaianthus now had the appearance of a tree, and was nearly two feet high. Branch-like shoots protruded from the upper part of its stem or trunk, which measured about two inches in circumference. White in colour, it was lined all over by a network of brownish veins that evidently formed some part of a system of circulation. The whole growth was covered with fine hairs, as one sees on a poppy stalk. These hairs became sharp hard points or thorns, when approaching the ends of the shoots. The shoot did not develop from the ends like ordinary plants. There were no budding leaves or flowers. They were in the nature of suckers, each having a worm-like head surrounded by the thorns, whilst the branch body grew from the parent stem, becoming broader and longer but never losing its original shape. These sucker-heads expanded or contracted as the plant swayed. For it swayed like seaweed in a swell. But there was no current to sway it. As if in some unfelt wind it writhed upwards and down with a horrible rhythm of its own. The word growth adequately expressed the impression the plant gave me. It had the decayed appearance of a fungus, rather than the freshness of a shrub. Also, there was none of that roughness of texture one sees on the bark of shrubs. The main stem from which the branches grew was smooth as they were. The joint was invisible, like the arms of a body. That was what it reminded me of. But not a human one. More like an attenuated octopus, with its sucker-like tendrils stretching out and lengthening as the thing grew. And it always kept up that slow. horrible swaying movement. This thing was alive, like an octopus.

The plant in the greenhouse dies but a second one is found outside the building. The Cordaianthus is quite successful, growing branches off in all directions. This angers Dorner’s neighbors, requiring the scientist to buy plenty of weed-killer. The plant is also carnivorous. First it devours a drop of blood that Dorner leaves when he pricks his finger on its thorns, and later the men watch it catch and drain a bird. Dorner would destroy the monster but he wants to see it bloom more than anything.

The neighbors keep getting more sprouts. Later, while the narrator is away, he hears that the plant has eaten Timmy, Dorner’s favorite, small, white dog. Dorner decides to kill his plant. Later, Dorner disappears and the narrator plays detective trying to find him. The scientist had gone to the shed for more weed-killer and was not seen again. The entire house is searched. The friend remembers a special locked room for plant specimens. When he and a policeman open that door, they find Dorner dead, his body riddled with suckers. The last plant has also bloomed at last.

Gorst’s story is a brilliant tale in a sub-genre that has many classics. She invests her plant with a terrible nature, comparing it to worms, octopi and snakes. In plot, this tale isn’t really much different than H. G. Wells’s “The Flowering of the Strange Orchid” (Pall Mall Budget, August 2, 1894) but Gorst adds a monstrousness to the plant that Wells’s little vine lacks. This story appeared in another Christine Campbell Thomson anthology.

Conclusion

Once again I am struck at how all of these tales are Horror fiction first, making us want to turn away from our green friends with a shudder…but how they are all Science Fiction tales second. Unlike Dante and his Wood of Suicides, there is no magic or myth here. These are biological terrors. Science could categorize and label them for you as they ate your face. Like tales of spiders, giant bats or other nature wonders turned killer, these are all God’s creatures, hungry and ready to protect themselves as only Nature can. Also like Nature’s dangers, the tornado, avalanche or flood, they are unstoppable once they get going.

If you’d enjoy more plant monsters, check out these two anthologies by Timothy S. Miller, M. Grant Kellermeyer and Charles G. Waugh, Roots of Evil and the upcoming Frankenplants from Sam Teddy Publishing.

Monsters and Mayhem from RAGE machine Books