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where the upas grows "not a tree or blade of grass is to be found in the valley or the surrounding mountains, not a bird, beast, reptile, or living thing lives in its neighbourhood." He adds that "on one occasion 1600 refugees encamped within fourteen miles of it, and all but 300 died within two months :"
...
the mere touch or smell of some of the poisons produced by the natives is sufficient to produce death, and one of the most deadly of these was said by him to be produced from the sap of the Upas. He tells us that arrows dipped in this juice were as fatal in their effects twenty years afterwards as at their first preparation.
...
symptoms of poisoning being severe headache, bloodshot eyes, and a delirium that is pre., sently hushed in death
The park has 280km of near pristine coastline and comprises of 328 000 hectares of magnificent scenery. Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park encompasses an immense mosaic of habitats ranging from marine systems (coral reefs and beaches) and coastal forests (from salt and fresh water marshes to the open estuarine waters of Lake St Lucia itself) from lush coastal plains to the drier woodland areas. This is a remarkably beautiful place in South Africa.
Source
1860, we learn from the Polish biologists, Dr. Omelius Fredlowski that he had received from a German researcher with the names, Carle Liche receive a letter, which alleges a similar discovery in Madagascar to have made.
He had participated in a Opferungsritual where locals a vibrant woman this monster tree to reassure his deadly elemental force had made available to the village to spare.
The Delinquentin had to climb up the trunk, and is the top, a liquid, clear, syrupy substance orally fed.
Intoxicated them, she wanted to come down again, however, the tree suddenly reacts.
He proposed, with its 8x 3, 5 m long Blätterum to umschlang the woman and pushed it more and more around the body until their screams in a gurgelnden noise and suffocating finally liquid blood, mixed with the juice of crushed intestines of the victim, mixed with The thick liquid substance intoxication of the plant, the root herablief.
Liche described this extra-terrestrial species of world flora as a 2.5 m wide, like a Annanasstaude-looking plant, whose treetops of 2 one above the other concave plates of confusion to which this aphrodisiac juices drip. Under the bottom plate cover 2.5 m long tendrils, which are in all directions to expand. 1.5 m long white probe to penetrate from the plant, which had begun to vibrate before the woman swallowed.
In 1881 a magazine called the South Australian Register ran a story by a traveler called Carle Liche. He tells us that while travelling through Madagascar, he was horrified to watch the native Mdoko tribe sacrifice a woman to a man-eating tree. He stated that the places the woman near the tree, and after laying there for a few seconds, the tree's tendrils took the woman by the neck and strangled her, before apparently engulfing the body. In his 1924 book "Madagascar, land of the man-eating tree" former Michigan Governor Chase Osborn recounted Liche's tale, and mentioned that missionaries and locals in Madagascar all knew of the deadly tree. Unfortunately, Liche's accounts may have been an exaggeration, as both the Mdoko tribe nor the man-eating tree have ever been found, and the governor may simply have been embellishing a little bit more to make for good reading.
He (Karl Shuker) mentions a few different places in the world where man-eating trees are supposed to live.
The largest and most rumored one it the one in Madagascar. Allegedly pictures of this tree have been published in a newspaper in about 1928 (not sure about that date), but he mentions that he has been unable to find them yet (so have I).
Originally posted by DezertSkies
Remember, some plants, trees, and flowers have seeming irregular cycles. Some bloom every year, some every other year, there are species of bamboo that bloom every hundred and someodd years. How about some of the strange orchids that only bloom once every so-many years.
Don't put it past a plant to be moderately toxic as a defense mechanism, and every so many years or decades, the tree might become a wee bit more toxic and "bloom" after there's plenty of living things to kill around it. They could be the same tree in a different phase. Also many fungus are mycorrhyzial (sp?) and associated with the root systems of certain trees. It could be a fungus, and perhaps a fungus associated with a certain phase of the tree.
Plants are strange critters, and if nothing they're patient most of the time. An entire species of plant will "wait" a hundred years and some to do whatever it does.