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Evil Tree Species- The Umdhlebi of Zululand

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posted on May, 16 2009 @ 08:26 PM
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I'd smoke the leaves.



posted on May, 16 2009 @ 11:22 PM
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I'm trying to think of an Northern hemisphere tree that produces toxic smoke when it is burned, but can't remember its name.

Going a bit off topic here...

I'm also trying to think of whose people are more knowledgeable about their flora: the medicine men and women of the Amazon or Africa.

The medicine men and women were long killed off in Europe, burned as witches.

In the Anglo world artificial pharmaceuticals took place and the secrets of the plants of the world slipped from the academic realm with only a few Asiatic nations carefully documenting nature's medicines, free of the Rothschild's catastrophic influence on Western medicine.

Even I can only easily identify about 3 wild plants in my locale that can be eaten when there is a large percentage of edible plants.

In some parts of Africa they are killing witches just as Europeans and some Americans did a very good job of doing a few hundred years earlier.

People need to help preserve certain plants from disappearing forever. And once something is gone, like this legendary tree of death, it's gone forever, and I'd really have liked to have one



posted on May, 16 2009 @ 11:39 PM
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reply to post by star in a jar
 


I would say that it depends on the specific tribe, as to who are more knowledgeable.

I know a good deal of the edible plants around here, but that's just because I own a very good book resource with common dangerous lookalikes.

But still, with the burning, it seems like the tree is dangerous even without burning it. This could be because of a poisonous sap that dries when in contact with air and is spread by wind and air currents?

Or some other form of toxin. It doesn't appear that it needs to be burned, though.



posted on May, 16 2009 @ 11:59 PM
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reply to post by star in a jar
 


You're probably thinking of mountain laurel.



posted on May, 17 2009 @ 01:22 AM
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Here is an article about a narrative of a visit to the island by a Dutch physician, named Foersch, published in 1783.

Interesting read with a bit more info.

UPAS TREE


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


I remember an old National Geographic but I haven't seen it in decades, it showed a tree that grew like a big fungus, but was more like fleshy meat than a wood and smelled like rotten corps.

Anyone ever see that show?



I can't remember where or the name of the

[edit on 17-5-2009 by imd12c4funn]



posted on May, 17 2009 @ 02:20 AM
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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.



posted on May, 17 2009 @ 10:57 AM
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Interesting. I've never heard of this tree.


I visit "Zululand" (Kwazulu-Natal) at least once a year, including the St Lucia Wetlands Park which probably hosts the biggest natural forest in "Zululand".


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


Although a lot of deforestation has taken place to make way for sugar cane plantations and pine and eucalypt plantations, there are also plentiful natural forests around.

I cannot think of a single native tree that fits the description (or at least causes said symptoms). There are plenty of “evil looking trees”, as I’m sure there are everywhere in the world. But I'm pretty sure that if it (still) existed there would be more information about it available. My guess is that it's typical "local legend" from those days. And as far as I know - the legend has died some time ago (well, everywhere but on the Internet
).



posted on May, 17 2009 @ 12:35 PM
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I like Dezert's point. It's possible that it could be in a dormant stage, I suppose. 200 years is nothing for a tree.

Gemwolf, I thought that, too. If there's a tree that is that distinct, I think we would know about it by now. But perhaps it either mutated (it would be a very fast mutation but perhaps it was on it's way out back in the 1700s and 1800s) or was destroyed.

I'm a little unsure what to think.

If it was -only- the Zulu who came up with this story, I would think it was a myth or legend. But the fact that Parker, a seemingly reputable scientist endorsed by a popular scientific research magazine, provides some written evidence towards the Umdhlebi, it makes me wonder.

Now we've all heard stories of other "reputable" scientists going on expeditions and coming back with Fuji Mermaids, or unicorn skulls, or reports of huge anacondas that no one else had seen (not that I'm discounting the anacondas, by any means). So one may ask "Why is this different?"

Well, what's to gain from endorsing a mythical animal that you market as real? Money, for one. Lots of money to pay for more expeditions. Also, money for any "evidence" that you bring back. And fame for finding a mythic beast.

What's to gain from endorsing a mythic plant? Unless you can harvest it and it bestows immortality, not much. As a scientist, maybe they would send you back there to learn more, but in the 1800s the chances of finding a single tree in Africa are... well... he probably could but it's not like these trees are everywhere. But there are many trees already, what's cool about a new one? And this one kills people and things. Even if you wanted to, you probably couldn't just uproot it and bring it back to study. Honestly, a tree like this, you probably wouldn't even want to go near. And no one is going to give you money for discovering a tree like this.

So I'm not really sure where Parker stood on this whole thing. But... I don't think he would lie about it on purpose. Maybe the Zulu really had him convinced and the "myth" part was lost in translation. I'm guessing that is more likely.



posted on May, 17 2009 @ 12:40 PM
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reply to post by tothetenthpower
 


I think you have one of the best Avatars on ATS, great painting says so many things, goes wit the subject if trees in this thread.




posted on May, 18 2009 @ 10:05 AM
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found something else, original is in german and the google translation isn't perfect...


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.


Source: www.daemonenforum.de...



posted on May, 18 2009 @ 10:20 AM
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found another source in english.


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.


Source: www.theparanormalreport.com...


Picture of another version of man-eating vegetation


link Depiction of a native being consumed by a Ya-te-veo ("I see you") carnivorous tree of Central America, from Land and Sea by J.W. Buel, 1887.

It seems like there should be an image from 1920s of the man-eating trees from madagascar, does anyone have this image ??


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).



[edit on 18-5-2009 by SilverSurfer]



posted on May, 18 2009 @ 02:31 PM
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reply to post by SilverSurfer
 


Ahhh! Good connection. I have heard of the cryptobotanical "man eating trees." I do not think that the umdhlebi actually eats people, it appears to just kill them. When I think of man eating trees, I think of carnivorous plants (venus fly trap, jack in the pulpit) and other species which can eat animals as large as rodents. There are some other threads on man-eating trees already on ATS. I kind of think that this is something different that does not actually digest what it kills.



posted on May, 19 2009 @ 07:50 PM
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No reply as yet from the Zulu's -maybe tomorrow.



posted on May, 20 2009 @ 03:29 PM
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reply to post by SharkBait
 


Okay! Thanks so much again, Shark.



posted on May, 31 2009 @ 09:38 PM
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reply to post by ravenshadow13
 


I think I have heard about this one, I think it was on a Monster Quest episode with the Mongolian Death Worms. I thought the tree was suppossed to eat people though?? Well laied out thread, star and flag.



posted on Jun, 1 2009 @ 10:17 AM
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reply to post by jkrog08
 


Thanks, Jkrog! The man-eating tree is slightly different. This one apparently just kills things. But the myths are pretty similar.



posted on Jun, 1 2009 @ 10:31 AM
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reply to post by ravenshadow13
 


Do you think these myths are to be taken seriously? I have always liked the living dinosaur myths(lol after seeing Jurassic Park), when I was younger I always wanted to go on an expedition to some island to see if there were dinosaurs still alive. Have you ever heard of the "Bloop Sound", that one really gets me, especially the size of the creature that made that if it is truly organic in nature. I also like the Malei Malei (sp?) tales from Africa and think it is quite possible some large sauropod still lives. The Loch Ness monster I have always been interested in too, but there haven't been any good developments recently in any of these fields because, like you said last night on the issues forum, it is not as interesting as other fields. The Giant Squid used to be in Crypto, until it was proven by dead carcasses and later in 2005 by a live film of it in 1000 plus feet of water. I think the Giant Squid has always been may favorite though really, plus it is real (for sure),lol.



posted on Jun, 1 2009 @ 10:47 AM
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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.


Coincidentally, I watched The Happening last night on TV with Mark Wahlberg. The movie came out last June (08). It wasn't a great movie but it hit on the gist of your reply. Very Interesting. Here is the YouTube link for anyone interested in seeing the Trailer. The Happening Trailer Pt. 2

EDIT: It is about plants evolving the ability to emit poisonous gasses that cause humans to commit suicide.

[edit on 1-6-2009 by Hazelnut]



posted on Jun, 1 2009 @ 04:24 PM
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reply to post by jkrog08
 


Some of them, it's just hard to tell. With this tree, I think it's possible that it could release some sort of toxin. Scientifically we just don't know everything, we shouldn't pretend that we do.

But my favorite cryptids... oh lordy. Um, plesiosaurs, coelacanths, giant anacondas, anything aquatic of course. Cephalopods....... I'm not a fan of the paranormal linked ones, or chupacabra, or bigfoot really. Although some other hominid cryptids are interesting.

Iiiiiiii love cryptozoology.



posted on Jun, 1 2009 @ 04:34 PM
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reply to post by ravenshadow13
 


Have you see the thread on this forum about the "strange creatures filmed in Japan"? What are those? I could swear I have seen them before.

Also are you familiar with the "Bloop" sound.

Link to thread:www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 6/1/2009 by jkrog08]







 
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