PROLOGUE:
“On the twenty-third day of the month of September - In an early year of a decade not too long before our own, the human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence. And this terrifying enemy surfaced, as such enemies often do, in the seemingly most innocent and unlikely of places.”
— “Little Shop of Horrors”, 1982 movie musical
GERMINATION:
Pollinate an African Violet with a drop of Dracula’s blood and you’ve got a biological wonder and an icon from vintage comic books and mail-order catalogs; the carnivorous, man-eating, blood-sucking, monster-plant known as the Venus Flytrap.
This little oddity comes with its own built in marketing campaign. With out much manipulation of the truth, the facts alone read like the best of mail-order hyperbolic BS:
The Venus Flytraps diet consists of ants, flies, beetles, slugs, spiders and tiny frogs.
A plant that counts and tells time: As soon as an insect lands on the inside of the hinged trap, tiny sensory hairs begin to count the movements from the insect. There must be at least two movements in 20 seconds for the trap to trigger, close and imprison its prey.
Once the jaw has snapped shut, the needle-like-teeth keep the insect trapped inside and unable to escape certain death.
After a five to 12 day digestive nap, the trap opens back up to spit out the remaining lifeless bug appendages.
Each trap on the plant has a lifespan of about a half-dozen feedings — making this natures true serial killer.
Of such interest to scientists in the field of robotics, the plant is being studied in an attempt to build a robotic reproduction that can catch and digest its own fuel.
A BOY AND HIS PLANT:
My first Venus Flytrap was purchased in the 70s from a nursery rather than ordered through the mail. The plant came in its own little plastic terrarium to maintain the humid environment it required to survive. I named it “Cleopatra” after the man-eating plant in “The Addams Family” tv show. Naturally, leaving the little girl alone in her happy humid bliss finally got the better of me. I ultimately couldn’t resist the temptation to pop the dome on the terrarium and attempt feeding her a freshly killed fly, a small clump of hamburger and the tip of my finger.
Sadly, Cleopatra eventually (rather quickly) curled up and withered away leaving nothing but her mossy basin in her tiny plastic flower pot. Still, the experience the excitement and the memories of the event made her well worth the purchase price.
SHARING IS CARING:
My next attempt with the man-eating plant came in my early adult years. I stumbled across some Venus Flytraps for sale at a local greenhouse and purchased a small lot for myself and my office mates at work. I gave them out as Valentine’s Day gifts along with a bloody note that read “Nothing says I love you like a man-eating plant.” (It was already well established in the workplace that I was a little “bent” so this surprised no one.)
BIG KID:
Now my “Cleopatra” is of the artificial variety. Other than an occasional dusting, she’s super easy to care for and always looks pert, hearty and healthy.
I love my little fake carnivores plant — another childhood memory revisited and safely preserved until dementia sets in.
Time to fake-feed some fake-flies to my fake-plant and give her a little dusting — Lily Munster-style. Alas, a monster-child’s work is never done.
Signing off ...
Gullibly yours — “Gullible”
SIDEBAR: A BAD ATTACK -OR- ROTTEN TOMATOES
In the spirit of pissed-off-hungry-alien-monster-vegetation, I feel compelled to mention the 1977 film, “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.” If you haven’t seen it ... count yourself lucky and don’t. But the name, premise and poster art alone make it a winner in my book and worthy of mention here.
I went to see a midnight showing of “Killer Tomatoes” with friends during our college years — early 80s. It was pretty damn bad to be brutally honest. But it was something funny to do so we went, we saw, we laughed, we groaned, we said our goodnights and everyone went their separate ways — at 2 o’clock in the morning. Except for me. I drove to the 24-hour grocery store, bought a dozen tomatoes, took ‘em home, put mean faces on them with googly-eyes, white tape for fangs and black marker for facial details — then drove around and left them on my friends doorsteps to greet them when they awoke in the morning. BTW: I no longer have that kind of energy.
SIDEBAR: INVASIVE FOLIAGE -OR- WORLD DOMINATION
If you’ve never seen the musical “Little Shop of Horrors”, please add it to your bucket list. Be it a live stage production or the Rick Moranis / Ellen Greene / Steve Martin film by director Frank Oz, it is worth your time. So clever. So campy. So funny. Such a great cast. Such a great score. It is an all around retro-blast! Even the original 1960 black and white Jack Corman horror movie it’s based on (starring Jack Nicholson in his debut film role) is worth a viewing.
As further proof that a good botanical-monster never dies, a new musical version of “Little Shop of Horrors” is in the planning stages. As of this writing (Sept, 2020), the tentative cast is as as follows;
Seymor Krelborn, nerd and self-taught-botanist: Aaron Egerton
Audrey, Seymor's girlfriend: Scarlet Johansson
Orin Scriveiio, DDS: Chris Evans
Audrey II, the bloodthirsty plant: Billy Porter
Da-da-da-da-da-da-doop ...
SIDEBAR: SMART STUFF:
The first mention of this curious plant was penned in a 1759 letter to English botanist Peter Collinson by the North Carolina Colonial Governor, Arthur Dobbs. In the letter he wrote: "We have a kind of Catch Fly Sensitive which closes upon anything that touches it.”
A year later Dobbs went into greater detail about the plant in a followup letter to Collinson: “The great wonder of the vegetable kingdom is a very curious unknown species of Sensitive. It is a dwarf plant. The leaves are like a narrow segments of a sphere, consisting of two parts, like the cap of a spring purse, the concave part outwards, each of which falls back with indented edges (like an iron spring fox-trap); upon anything touching the leaves, or falling between them, they instantly close like a spring trap, and confine any insect or anything that falls between them. It bears a white flower. To this surprising plant I have given the name of Fly Trap Sensitive.”
THE END!
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