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Post by jamesdoig on Oct 19, 2015 19:58:19 GMT
Uninspired POD cover: Flora Curiosa, ed Chad Arment (Coachwip, 2008) Contents Rappaccini's Daughter (1844), Nathaniel Hawthorne The American's Tale (1880), Arthur Conan Doyle The Man-Eating Tree (1881), Phil Robinson The Balloon Tree (1883), Edward Page Mitchell The Flowering of the Strange Orchid (1894), H. G. Wells The Treasure in the Forest (1894), H. G. Wells The Purple Pileus (1896), H. G. Wells The Purple Terror (1898), Fred M. White A Vine on a House (1905), Ambrose Bierce Professor Jonkin's Cannibal Plant (1905), Howard R. Garis The Willows (1907), Algernon Blackwood The Voice in the Night (1907), William Hope Hodgson The Orchid Horror (1911), John Blunt The Man Whom the Trees Loved (1912), Algernon Blackwood The Pavilion (1915), E. Nesbit The Sumach (1919), Ulric Daubeny The Green Death (1920), H. C. McNeile Si Urag of the Tail (1923), Oscar Cook Green Thoughts: A Story (1931), John Collier The Walk to Lingham (1934), Lord Dunsany
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Post by andydecker on Oct 20, 2015 9:25:22 GMT
Can't believe nobody posted this. (Or I overlooked it, always a possibility.)
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Post by dem bones on Oct 20, 2015 17:42:17 GMT
Flora Curiosa, ed Chad Arment (Coachwip, 2008) ... and the sequel. Chad Arment (ed.) - Botanica Delira: More Stories of Strange, Undiscovered, and Murderous Vegetation (Coachwhip, 2010) Chad Arment - Preface
Newspaper "Wonder Stories"
Anonymous - The Electric Tree of New Guinea (1885) Anonymous - A Strange Vegetable Production (1890) Anonymous - Metal Eating Plant (1890) Anonymous - Vegetable Boa Constrictors (1893) Anonymous - An Arizona Yarn (1894) Anonymous - Rather Uncanny (1895) Anonymous - The Land Octopus (1895) Anonymous - Demon Flowers (1896) Anonymous- Editorial, American Botanist (1912) N. Tourneur- Plants That Fight (1913)
Short Stories --------------------------------------- Louisa May Alcott - Lost in a Pyramid, or the Mummy's Curse (1869) Anonymous - The Man-Eating Tree (1875) Anonymous - The Devil Tree (1883) Lucy H. Hooper - Carnivorine (1889) Grant Allen - My One Gorilla (1890) May Crommelin - Lamparagua (1893) Flavel Scott Mines - The Flower of Death (1893) Anonymous - The Man-Killing Tree of Ceylon (1893) H. B. M. Buchanan- The Death Plant of South Africa (1895) Dr. Edmond Nolcini - The Guardian of Mystery Island (1896) Anonymous - The Man-Trap Cactus (1895) Anonymous - A Flesh-Eating Plant (1901) Owen Oliver - The Gray Weed (1905) Beatrice Grimshaw - The Tale of the Scarlet Butterflies (1908) Marjorie L. C. Pickthall - The Black Orchid (1910) Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventure of the Devil's Foot (1910) Sax Rohmer - Spores of Death (1913) Joseph B. Ames - The Thunder Beast (1920) James Hanson - Orchid Death (1921) René Morot - Drosera Cannibalis (1922) Anthos - The Malignant Flower (1927) Blurb: Botanica Delira is a companion anthology to Flora Curiosa. It includes 21 additional classic short stories of unusual (and often deadly) plants, flowers, and fungi from science fiction and fantasy.
Some stories relate to man-eating plants, others to flowers with deadly perfumes. One describes a killer tropical cactus, while another tells the story of an apocalyptic weed. One story, "The Thunder Beast," includes both cryptobotanical and cryptozoological elements.
In addition, 10 brief "wonder stories," or newspaper hoaxes involving mystery plants are included, illustrating the roots of fictional subgenre.
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Post by jamesdoig on Oct 20, 2015 19:54:02 GMT
N. Tourneur- Plants That Fight (1913) Presumably "Nigel Tourneur" who wrote the classic decadent collection, Hidden Witchery.
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Post by mcannon on Oct 20, 2015 21:55:19 GMT
Even that non-Master of Terror Frank R Paul (I love his work dearly, but he couldn't draw a convincing-looking monster or alien to save himself) got in on the act! Mark
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Post by dem bones on Oct 28, 2015 6:03:21 GMT
A riot of colour. Yet another super contribution from Mr. Fanatic!
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Post by dem bones on Jul 16, 2016 12:35:25 GMT
Non-fiction, but glorious cover photo surely warrants inclusion on this thread. John Whitman - The Psychic Power Of Plants (Star, 1975) Blurb: The ancients knew secrets we have long since forgotten. Science is at last rediscovering what these people knew intuitively. Through the use of polygraphs, photography, and controlled testing, The Psychic Power of Plants explores the strange behaviour of plants, throws new light on hallucinogenic plants, fertility rites, ESP, witchcraft, and the mental powers of common household plants.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 16, 2016 17:06:21 GMT
Hugh Rankin John Murray Reynolds - The Devil-Plant: (Weird Tales, Sept. 1928). In the jungles of the Amazon a great botanist created a nightmare horror, more animal than plant. Disputed diary of Jonathan Darrowby, the noted explorer who disappeared in Palaos, Brazil four years ago - disputed because the tale it tells is so horrific it simply cannot be true! Darrowby records his meeting with Wanless, an eccentric white man who lives among the natives. Wanless, a genius MAD BOTANIST of zero repute, is waited upon by Lucia, the primitive half-caste he bought from a trader who'd abducted her from a river settlement. Darrowby suspects there is more to their relationship than is decent, but doesn't press the issue. One thing is certain. Lucia lives in constant terror of something, and, having lingered long over C. C. Senf's glorious cover painting, we are pretty sure what. The Wanless garden is a thing of beauty - or would be were it not for the several "queer, perverted plants" whose foul stench tends to ruin the ambience. But far worse is the old guy's pride and joy, Zoophyte giganticus wanlessi, the flesh-eating, half-Venus fly-trap, half-beast he cultivates in a mud-hut. Recently, encouraged by Wanless, this Frankenplant has developed an appetite for living flesh. Wanless hopes that one day soon it will uproot and hunt its own food. Darrowby decides perhaps now would be a bloody good time to return to civilisation .... C. C. Senf
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Post by dem bones on Oct 11, 2016 10:03:56 GMT
Hamilton Craigie - The Man Trap ( Weird Tales, Nov. 1925). Andrew Brosnatch Welcome to the hot-house of Professor Udolfo Pordenone (he's Italian), "perverted genius" and MAD BOTANIST, a garden of grim monstrosities dominated by the huge, unspeakably ugly, squid-like carnivore, Hecate triformis. Prof. Pordenone is a great believer in talking to his plants. "My children!" he whispered, low. "Your time will come - even now it is at hand! I, Udolpho Pordenone, have promised you! And then - ah, then, we shall see!"Fact. One's genius is never appreciated in one's own lifetime. Envious nonentities will always sneer. People like that infernal Gammage, the orchis-hunter. Gammage has belittled him one time too many. Tonight he will pay for his insults. Tonight he will be made to eat his words, even as he is being eaten alive! Unfortunately, in all his excitement, Pordenone miscalculates the dosage of miracle serum required to nourish a second fly-trap. Seabury Quinn - The Black Orchid, ( Weird Tales, Feb. 1929) "At the last you shall feel Mamba's kiss, and your blood shall waste and dry away as the little brooks in summer, yet no man shall see you bleed: your life shall slowly ebb away as the tide ebbs from the shore, and none shall give you help; flowers shall feed upon your body while you are still alive, and the thing you most adore shall waste and wither in your sight, yet you will have no power to stay the doom which crushes her and which shall crush you, too, when she is gone."Hugh Rankin Hugh Irish - The Mystery of Sylmare: (Weird Tales, July 1927) Strange suicides shocked the artist-colony at Sylmare - the story of a conspiracy of plant-life against humanity.
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Post by helrunar on Oct 12, 2016 15:21:32 GMT
Lord Demonik, you truly are a god.
And no doubt you would reply: "Sir, I am aware of my responsibilities."
cheers, H.
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 23, 2016 15:36:45 GMT
A Botanical Nightmare: Six Succulent Stories of Vampiric Vegetation: The Literary Vampire, Volume 1 (Dead Letter Press, 2015), edited by Tom English.
Here's the blurb from Am*z*n:
A BOTANICAL NIGHTMARE collects a half-dozen Victorian weird tales featuring "the Green Menace" -- evil plants that entrap, strangle, and leach the blood of their victims. These "six succulent stories of vampiric vegetation" include contributions by H.G. Wells, E. & H. Heron, Phil Robinson, and E. Nesbit, as well as an adventure featuring literature's first psychic detective, Mr. Flaxman Low. Included is an introduction by Series Editor Tom English. A BOTANICAL NIGHTMARE is the first volume in the Literary Vampire Series, edited by Tom English and presenting the early English prose and poetry that helped shape Bram Stoker's DRACULA and create an enduring sub-genre of horror fiction.
Contents: "The Man-Eating Tree" by Phil Robinson (1881)
“The Flowering of the Strange Orchid” by H.G. Wells (1894)
"The Story of The Grey House" by E. & H. Heron (1898)
"The Purple Terror" by Fred M. White (1899)
"The Pavilion" by E. Nesbit (1915)
"The Sumach" by Ulric Daubeny (1919)
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Post by helrunar on Oct 24, 2016 2:20:07 GMT
This delicious thread is simply bristling with other examples that have included in an anthology dedicated to "vampiric vegetation." One that occurred to me reading that contents list is this stand-alone section (I think it's one self contained chapter) of Sax Rohmer's Brood of the Witch-Queen. The episode revolves around a particularly loathsome instance of this type of flora.
H.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 24, 2016 5:49:24 GMT
This delicious thread is simply bristling with other examples that have included in an anthology dedicated to "vampiric vegetation." One that occurred to me reading that contents list is this stand-alone section (I think it's one self contained chapter) of Sax Rohmer's Brood of the Witch-Queen. The episode revolves around a particularly loathsome instance of this type of flora. H. Glad it's not just me who felt a little underwhelmed at the selection. It is essentially Flora Curiousa lite. All 'good' stories, but am wondering at A Botanical Nightmare's target audience. Fans of the plants on the rampage genre will already have copies of the six stories many times over, while the purple terror curious can easily locate them on-line.
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 24, 2020 21:06:35 GMT
Mandragora Sapiens - Morgan Evans (London Mystery Magazine Dec. 1960) Mr. Vance decides to grow an unknown tuber bought from his local grocer & supposedly from a South American expedition, in his conservatory. Masters, a member of the Royal Horticultural Society and fellow member of Vance's club, advises him how to go about this. His sister Dora, usually scornful of this kind of thing, becomes strangely obsessed. She starts to use make-up, buys herself a new dress & lets her hair down (literally) and spend lots of time near the plant. Yet Vance, who comes to dislike the plant more and more, can't quite bring himself to get rid of it...
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Post by Swampirella on Feb 1, 2020 21:48:26 GMT
Green Fingers - Philip Jason West - London Mystery Magazine #55 March 1963
"Otto had been head gardener at the Grange for over 60 years and what he didn't know about plants couldn't cover a postage stamp. When the old Duke died, Otto went to live with his son in London, but was plainly unhappy there". So when the local doctor, Dr. Scott, needs a gardener after his wife dies, Otto happily returns. Not long after, the doctor notices Otto actually does have green hands. When Otto doesn't show up one day, he goes to find out what the problem is, which turns out to be little green shoots sprouting from Otto's fingertips! The doctor tries to find a specialist for Otto, who's resigned to the fact that plants are part of him now. He brings him to see Dr. Vaughn, a London dermatologist and friend from his university days. Vaughn is thrilled with this exciting new case & has poor Otto put in a nursing home at his expense so he can study his case. A short time later Dr. Scott reads of Otto's death. Of course the "disease" progressed until Otto was all vegetable. He's buried near the village where after a few months a tree grows out of his grave. Since it blocks light from the Vicar's flowers and is ugly to boot, it's is cut down and burned, leaving blood welling out of the stump...
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