Tentacles in the jungle will catch you

Forgotten stories of 2 vampire plants

    The jungles are mysterious regions filled mostly with still virgin areas that remain unexplored, in some of their territories legends run about what mysterious beasts and supernatural beings, but sometimes even plants are the reason for these legends and today we will see cases where plants are the protagonists, being a mysterious plant, which has long caused fear among the inhabitants of the jungles, accompanying me to see these cases.

The Nicaraguan Vampire Vine 

    It was a strange plant, described for the first and only time by a naturalist named Mr. Dunstan, in Nicaragua, around the late 1800s, but apparently being known by the natives of the area, since in the language of the people near Lake Cocibola they called it "the devil's trap."

Described as a plant that inhabited areas of swamps and lakes, he found it accidentally while looking for insects and plants near that area, when suddenly his dog fell victim to this plant. Describing that she found her dog wrapped in a rope-like network of roots and fibers, alluding to his network of stems as perfect, being of a fine tissue of roots and fibers shaped like ropes, having a dark tone, almost black, and were covered by a thick rubber that seemed to exude from a kind of pores, being similar to an adhesive rubber and had an apparently unpleasant or painful odor for the animal.

Dunstan was able to recover from this gruesome sight, tried desperately to free the dog with his knife, but found that the vines were surprisingly difficult to cut and, to his horror, he discovered that the plant's rope-like tendrils were actively wrapping and curling around his hands like sinuous fingers, his grip being too strong, that's why it was determined that it had a suction power similar to that of octopuses, having closed suction cups, after a deep fight and freeing its dog, saw that the roots left marks similar to burns and on the poor animal, they left him with suction marks, as if they had absorbed his blood.

Testimonials and information

    Even with his dog alive but weak, the naturalist told the natives about his encounter, they told him that this was a dangerous plant and he should stay away From it, however, the naturalist was encouraged by the discovery, and through his observations he apparently deduced where the plant's remarkable suction abilities derived from and how it fed, we quote this from his article in Reviews of Reviews magazine:

The suction power of the plant is contained in a number of infinitesimal mouths or small suction cups that are normally closed, opening to receive the food. If the substance is animal, it is extracted from the blood and then the corpse or waste is thrown away. If you throw a piece of raw meat at it, in the short space of five minutes it will be completely drunk the blood and will throw the dough aside, his voracity is almost incredible.

Dunstan also described how the plant was extremely difficult to detach from once it was attached, and could only be torn off with great effort and possibly losing skin while actively trying to cling or directly tear off the limbs. He eventually abandoned his studies on the vampire vine and very little else is known about it, The identity of said naturalist is also unknown, there are those who claim that this is a fraud because an alleged investigation concluded that the story in Review of Reviews seemed to be an invention of the editor and which was preceded by a longer version in a newspaper of 1889 describing Dunstan as a "well-known naturalist" from New Orleans, but there was never a verdict, leaving the existence of the vampire vine a mystery.

The African Snake Plant 

    Another supposed vine-style plant was reported, this time from the impenetrable jungles of the heart of Africa, brought to light by the European press in 1852, a little before the discovery of carnivorous plants, which had been ignored and fell into oblivion but was rescued by Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog site.

 Called "vegetable snake" by the natives, it was said to have the shape of a spotted snake., having the ability to crawl on the ground; having a central flower, shaped like a bell, which contains a viscous liquid. Being flies and other insects, attracted by the smell of the juice, entering the flower and getting trapped in the adhesive matter. Then the flower closes and remains closed until the prisoners are bruised and transformed into food, the indigestible portions, like the head and wings, they are expelled through two aspiration openings.

This supposedly has a skin reminiscent of leaves, a soft white flesh and a cartilaginous structure full of yellow marrow. The natives considered it a delicious food, although to date there is no certainty or clear hypothesis as to what this thing was, some suggest plants such as La Mimosa pudica or Lavatera cretica, but none has been a clear hypothesis, this case fell into oblivion and until now, no one had talked about it in a concrete way, so it remains a mystery pending to be solved, I leave the rest to your discretion.

Personal verdict 

   Well, in my personal verdict I can simply say that these plants could very well exist, let's remember that the variety of carnivorous plants is very large and there are plants like sundews that practically use their leaves as tentacles to catch prey, it would not be unreasonable to think that vampire plants like the one from Nicaragua or the Congo plant snake really exist, for now we are impartial and left it to your discretion. Thank you for reading, I hope in this project.

[[[[Links of interest]]]]

https://journalnews.com.ph/the-mysterious-case-of-the-vampire-vine-of-nicaragua/

https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/observations-strange-vegetable-snake-gourd

https://www.strangehistory.net/2017/12/19/mysterious-carnivorous-plant-animal/