![]() ![]() ![]() It was against the natural order of things. ![]() Until Darwin’s day, most people refused to believe that plants ate animals. Meat-eating, man-eating plants were having a moment, and for that you can thank Charles Darwin. But even his flytraps were improbably large, big enough to entomb and consume a human. Drawing on brand-new botanical revelations, he accurately described the two-lobed traps, the way they captured insects, and how thoroughly they digested their prey. The young Arthur Conan Doyle stuck closer to the science in a yarn featuring everyone’s favorite flesh-eater, the Venus flytrap. Mad professors raised monstrous sundews and pitcher plants on raw steak until their ravenous creations turned and ate them too. Terrible, tentacle-waving trees snatched and swallowed unwary travelers in far-off lands. Toward the end of the 19th century, lurid tales of killer plants began popping up everywhere. ![]()
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