We need plants for food, shelter, medicine, clothing and fuel—but they do not need us. All animal life on the planet depends on vegetation ultimately to survive. This is because only plants have developed the wonder of photosynthesis, the original alchemy that transmutes the golden light of the sun and a few other ingredients into materials we can eat and make things out of, and the oxygen we need to breathe. The elegance of this all sustaining photo-chemical process surely suggests—to some at least—the work of some intelligence higher than ours.
We
take all this for granted. Unless we are botanists or gardeners, we tend to
ignore all the green figures that stand quietly along our paths or surround our
homes and businesses. They seem
peaceful, passive and devoid of consciousness—until the human imagination grants them intelligence, sensuality,
mobility, and a will of their own. There
are many examples of horror and science fiction entertainment that involve
projecting human or animal traits onto the green world, with various
consequences.
One approach involves a type of character that
can be called the “mad gardener”. An
example of this type can be found in R.G. Macready’s The Plant Thing (1925). The
story was published in the July 1925 issue of Weird Tales. (The same issue
contained H.P. Lovecraft’s The Unnamable.)
A
reporter is sent to investigate the mysterious Professor Carter, who has been
buying large numbers of pigs, sheep, and calves. An agent of the local Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals fears the worst—wanton large scale vivisection
on the professor’s estate. But the
reporter is turned away at the door by one of the professor's several Malay
servants. (There seems to be a tradition
in these stories of associating people of color with dangerous tropical
vegetation, even when the specimen has been transplanted north to more temperate
climes).
The
reporter then sneaks over the wall of the compound and is promptly attacked—and
should be, for trespassing—by an enormous carnivorous tree. Caught in its serpentine creepers, he is
drawn toward “a mighty red lipped orifice.”
He wakes to find himself under the care of the professor and his beautiful
daughter, who rescued him. There he
learns the origin of this more stationary species of “tobonga”, (see the last
post), and falls in love with the professor’s daughter.
Professor
Carter, through careful cultivation and crossbreeding of carnivorous plants,
has been able to discover the missing link between the vegetable and animal
kingdoms. He calls it his “travesty”,
and the organism is only in its initial stage of development. “Whether it will attain the power of
locomotion remains to be seen.” You can
imagine why he has been ordering all the farm animals lately.
A
good depiction of the likely biology of Tobonga
sedentārius—though found on Mars—is
the 1959 science fiction film, The Angry
Red Planet. Dr. Iris Ryan, the sole
female scientist on the expedition, (and possibly the only female scientist on
earth at that time) is attacked by a very similar type of plant. It seems that after the 1920s, man eating
plants are more likely to select women
for meals.
A mature Tobonga
sedentārius has a trunk that is twelve feet in diameter and twenty-five
feet tall. Ear-like appendages hang from
the uppermost branches, and it captures its prey with ground hugging
creepers. The organism has eyes, and can
respond to simple verbal commands—if it wants to, and is otherwise not too
hungry. And it has a mouth with red lips.
The
ambitious scientist wants to revolutionize science—never a good idea—and with
the young reporter, nearly winds up as a meal himself. Other than a reminder of the hazards of
hubris, the principle moral of the story appears to be: Do not get real close to Tobonga sedentārius, unless you have an elephant gun.
Already
by the time of R.G. Macready’s The Plant
Thing—if not before—the principle elements of a “man eating plant story”
are present: scientist, scientist’s
daughter, young male adventurer, tentacled plant with voracious appetite, and
nonwhite staff members from a third world country. Typically, the young man must rescue the doomed
scientist’s daughter from the coils of the vegetable carnivore, which
inaugurates their romantic future.
(Interestingly, Macready reverses the order of the rescue in his story.)
However,
not all horticultural horrors are necessarily carnivorous. In the next post the R’lyeh Tribune will look at a completely different species of weird
plant.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your interest in The R'lyeh Tribune! Comments and suggestions are always welcome.