Curatorial and Outreach Assistant Jake Gentry goes foraging in our collections to find weird and wild specimens of flora.
“But it’s absurd. Plants talking!”
“So much more absurd than plants walking?” (John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids, 1951)
Unnatural plants have flourished in humanity’s narratives since the beginning, from King Gilgamesh’s immortality-granting herb that grew at the bottom of the sea to the biblical Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that bore the forbidden fruit. Whether through historical misunderstandings of nature or purely out of whimsy, fictitious plants have continued to spring up in history. This is the first in a series of blog posts in which we will be delving deep into freakish flora, as well as the beautifully strange botanical texts they thrive within. As we begin our survey into the anomalous field of cryptobotany, the study of plant-life whose existence is not yet proven, it is pertinent to note that many of these plants were once regarded as very real. These botanical texts–herbals–give us a glimpse into the early explorations of the natural sciences, when the earth grew roots that cried lethal shrieks, shrubs sprouted sheep, and trees bore geese rather than fruit.
SPECIMEN 1: VEGETABLE LAMB
- SPECIES NAME(S)/ALIAS(S): Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, Scythian Lamb, Planta Tartarica Barometz, the Boramez, Agnus Scythycus Borometz
- CLASSIFICATION: Zoophyte
- HABITAT: Forests of Central Asia
- LILLY LIBRARY APPEARANCES: QK99.A1 B63 1754, PR3327 .P9 1658a c. 2
The first abnormal plant on our cryptobotanical adventure is the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. A zoophyte (an amalgam of animal and plant), the Vegetable Lamb was claimed to be a source of wool in the ancient world, sourced from the sentient lambs that grew from it. Resembling the structure of a pineapple shrub, the Vegetable lamb grows on a narrow stem that arises from a fern-like plant. The lamb is described by Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica as “a strange plant-animal or vegetable Lamb of Tartary, which Wolves delight to feed on, which hath the shape of a Lamb, affordeth a bloody juice upon breaking, and liveth while the plants be consumed about it. And yet if all this be no more, then the shape of a Lamb in the flower or seed, upon the top of the stalk” (227).
Although the Vegetable Lamb was disputed by Browne, he nevertheless concludes his description by calling it wondrous. The plant is arguably one of the more popular fictitious plants from the Middles Ages, appearing in Elizabeth Blackwell’s Herbarium Blackwellianum in plate 360 of vol. 4 as a yellowish and furry critter, complete with brown, branchlike legs as pictured below.
The commonly-agreed real-world equivalent of the plant is the Cibotium barometz, also called the barometz and the golden chicken fern. Growing in parts of China and the Malay Peninsula, this plant does possess fluffy rhizomes, which could have been the Middle Ages inspiration for our lamb-bearing plant.
SPECIMEN 2: BARNACLE GOOSE TREE
- SPECIES NAME(S)/ALIAS(S): Barnacle Goose Tree, Goose Tree, The Tree Bearing Geese, Britannica Concha Anatifera
- CLASSIFICATION: Angiosperm [plant], Zoophyte [fruit]
- HABITAT: Northern Scotland, Orkney Islands
- LILLY LIBRARY APPEARANCES: GR825 .L98 1557, QK41 .G29
Continuing our trend of plants with animalistic fruit, the Goose Tree is an abnormal angiosperm that produces barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis) rather than something boring, like apples. Described as “certain trees, wherein do grow certain shellfish, of a white color tending to russet; wherein are contained little living creatures; which shells in time of maturity do open, and out of them grow those little living things; which falling into the water, do become fouls” (Gerard 1391). Curiously, these “barnacle geese” or “tree geese” only come to fruition if they fall in water, and they “perish and come to nothing” if they are unfortunate enough to fall upon land (Gerard 1391). This phenomenon is credited by John Gerard in The Herball, or, Generall Historie of Plantes as being quite true, with reported eyewitness testimonies of the goose tree and its barnacle geese offspring. Gerard also states that the goslings begin to grow in March and April, are fully formed by May and June, and hatch from their shell-like blossoms by July.
The Lilly Library’s copy of Gerard’s The Herball also features a tipped-in autograph letter that denounces the goose tree’s existence, with the writer stating “This supposed goose-bearing tree is the Lepas Anatifera of Linnaeus.” Lepas Anatifera, also known as the pelagic gooseneck barnacle, are real-world marine invertebrates that indeed exhibit whitish barnacles with russet coloring. L. Anatifera does not, however, produce barnacle geese. Sigh, disappointing.
Like its cousin the Vegetable Lamb, the goose tree has enjoyed mild fame in medieval bestiaries and herbals. The tree also appears in Konard Lykosthenes’s Prodigiorvm ac Ostentorvm Chronicon, as seen in the above image. Usually depicted as a tree overlooking water, this goose tree is actively hatching barnacle-geese-fruit here (let us hope they all land in the water!). The Prodigiorvm isa compendious treatise on omens, natural (and unnatural) disasters, astronomical phenomena, cannibals, and fantastical creatures that were meant to elucidate on the unknown. The goose tree, like other weird topics in the Prodigiorvm, are regarded within the text as a wondrously real plant. In this time in history– a mere two hundred years since the Black Plague devastated Europe– not only was nature less understood than it is in the present, but plants like the goose tree represent the intersection between the pursuit of scientific exploration and residue belief in superstition.
SPECIMEN 3: [SCREAMING] MANDRAKE
- SPECIES NAME(S)/ALIAS(S): Mandrake, Mandragora, Womandrake, Devil’s Candle, Brain Thief, Little Gallows Man
- CLASSIFICATION: Taproot
- HABITAT: [Underground] southern Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East
- LILLY LIBRARY APPEARANCES: QK41 .D86, QK41 .G29, QK41 .S5
The breakout star of the cryptobotantical scene, the mandrake has transcended herbals in favor of Hollywood, appearing in media such as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Charmed (1998-2006), Merlin (2008-2012), and (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018-2020). Long associated with witchcraft, the mandrake has also become a staple in Halloween decor, often appearing with other stereotypical ingredients of witches’ brew like eye of newt and vampire blood. Although this taproot is now practically tabloid famous, it has a history of terror.
Mandrakes have long fascinated humans, and rightfully so. A powerful narcotic and hallucinogenic, the mandrake’s ability to render people unconscious made it an invaluable anesthetic for surgery patients in antiquity. The root can be grated to produce a juice that alleviates pain in the joints and muscles when applied to the skin. The magic of the mandrake even extended to mental ailments, with physicians using it to treat depression and mania. This may sound all very fabulous, but I do not recommend plucking one of these from the earth to soothe that bad knee! All species of mandrakes are poisonous (!!!), containing tropane alkaloids that make the root and leaves both anticholinergic (a.k.a. poses risk of asphyxiation) and hypnotic. Large enough doses of mandrake were even said to induce delirium and madness in those that used it. Long story short, please don’t use mandrakes without consulting your doctor (or local alchemist, wise woman, or witch).
With such powerful properties, it is no wonder the mandrake quickly became the center of numerous folk beliefs, superstitions, and legends. This interest harkens all the way back to biblical times, with mandrakes appearing in the Book of Genesis as a cure for infertility. The lovey-dovey nature of the mandrake seemed to stick too, as the root has been used to create love-attracting amulets– a tradition still practiced by the Romani people. However, not all legends about the mandrake are charming. The root’s curious human-like appearance gave rise to insidious origins, such as the mandrake growing from the buried remains of criminals, or from bodily fluids dripped onto the ground from those hung at the gallows, as explained by John Gerard’s The Herball, or, Generall Historie of Plantes as “…it is never or very seldom to be found growing naturally but under a gallows, where the matter that hath fallen from the dead body, hath given it the shape of a man” (281). The mandrake plant also has a tendency to glow in the dark, which frightened ancient Arabian peoples enough to earn it the title “Devil’s Candle.” This is not entirely inaccurate per se, as the mandrake does have a tendency to glow– just not through innate devilish power. Glowworms thrive in the mandrake’s abundant leaves, something the ancient world probably did not widely comprehend at the time.
The most common extramundane ability attributed to the mandrake today is its tendency to unleash a lethal shriek when unearthed, dooming those that dared uproot it with madness or death. Never fear, though! Those crafty medieval herbalists found a nonlethal (at least to humans) method for mandrake picking: tie a poor dog to a pre-loosened mandrake and tempt it with meat from a distance. Tragically, the dog would tug the mandrake free in its attempt for a tasty treat, and become the victim of the mandrake’s shriek, rather than the herbalist, who was then free to collect his specimen. Gerard reported on this fabled practice, writing that “…he who would take up a plant thereof must tie a dog thereunto to pull it up…otherwise if a man should do it, he should certainly die in short space after” (281). Ye olde PETA has already been summoned. Enjoy your mandrake, jerk.
Anyways, thank you for reading the first installation of Freakish Flora. Keep on the lookout for further posts on perplexing plants!
About the author: Jake H. Gentry is a 24-year-old gay writer, artist, and graduate student. He received his Master of Library Science with a specialization in Rare Books and Manuscripts at Indiana University Bloomington, where he is now also pursuing his MA in Curatorship. He is a curatorial and teaching/reference assistant at the Lilly Library. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana with his partner and his two cats, Poe and Jiji.
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