Though this may look like a strange creature with tentacles at first to some, it is in-fact a fungus. It is also known as the Octopus Stinkhorn, and it gets that name because it resembles an octopus and it also smells like rotting flesh. In its early stages, it resembles an alien emerging from a pod.
It is native to New Zealand and Australia. This alien pod looking fungus actually has eggs that are edible, though they taste what you probably imagine them to taste like.
Cryptobotany is the study of hidden plants. In addition to Cryptozoology, Cryptobotany takes plants from history and folklore and studies them. There are many plants that have yet to be discovered, but because of how history and folklore reports these plants, Cryptobotany mostly focuses on things that are a danger or are of use to humans.
The above are opium poppies. The milky fluid that seeps from cuts in the unripe poppy seed pod has, since ancient times, been scraped off and air-dried to produce what is known as opium. (Source)
this plants jizz is the cause of the opium wars
Fascinating
And the demand for this shit literally causes Afghan farmers to forego growing food to feed their families and sell because poppy is so profitable. Saw it daily.
In Australia there is a tree called the bunya pine that drops watermelon sized pinecones. They weigh about 22 pounds or 10 kg. Yikes, wouldn’t want to anywhere near that tree. (Source)
Throughout Caribbean, Central America, the northern edges of South America, and even in south Florida, there can be found a pleasant-looking beachy sort of tree, often laden with small greenish-yellow fruits that look not unlike apples.
This is the manchineel, known sometimes as the beach apple, or more accurately in Spanish-speaking countries as la manzanilla de la muerte, which translates to “the little apple of death,” or as arbol de la muerte, “tree of death.”
“Warning: all parts of manchineel are extremely poisonous. The content in this document is strictly informational. Interaction with and ingestion of any part of this tree may be lethal,” write Michael G. Andreu and Melissa H. Friedman of the University of Florida in a brief guide to the tree.
This is not an exaggeration. The fruits, though described as sweet and tasty, are extraordinarily toxic. Fatalities are not known in modern literature, though it’s certainly possible that people have died from eating the fruit of the manchineel. “Shipwrecked sailors have been reported to have eaten manchineel fruits and, rather than dying a violent death, they had inflammations and blistering around the mouth. Other people have been diagnosed with severe stomach and intestinal issues,” says Roger Hammer, a naturalist and botanist who has written many books about the flora of Florida. (Source)
If you attempt to burn the wood, toxic fumes are released which will inflame the lungs and eyes. Sometimes people go blind from the smoke.
A discovery of ‘mutant daisies’ has been made near the site of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.
Twitter user San Kaido posted the pictures of the flowers, that appear to show stems and flowers connected to each other.
Others appear slightly deformed, and have prompted fears that radiation is affecting the area.
San Kaido wrote alongside the picture: “The right one grew up, split into 2 stems to have 2 flowers connected to each other, having 4 stems of flower tied belt-like.
“The left one has 4 stems grew up to be tied to each other and it had the ring-shaped flower.
“The atmospheric dose is 0.5 μSv/h at 1m above the ground.”
However, while the flowers may well be from Fukushima, their strange look may not necessarily be the result of radiation.
Plants and flowers can produce longer looking heads as a result of a natural condition known as fasciation.
Hormonal imbalances in the plant are usually to blame, altho bacterial and viral infections can also produce the mutations.
Three of the Fukushima’s six nuclear reactors went into meltdown in 2011 when the plant was hit by a tsunami – the result of a huge earthquake.
🔥 There is beauty in destruction🔥 