Botanica Delira: More Stories of Strange, Undiscovered, and Murderous Vegetation

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Chad Arment, editor
ISBN 1-61646-025-3
Retail $14.95 (USD)
289 pp. / Paperback

More Strange Plants in Fiction:

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.

The Electric Tree of New Guinea (1885)
A Strange Vegetable Production (1890)
A Metal Eating Plant (1890)
Vegetable Boa Constrictors (1893)
An Arizona Yarn (1894)
Rather Uncanny (1895)
The Land Octopus (1895)
Demon Flowers (1896)
Editorial, American Botanist (1912)
Plants That Fight (1913)

Short Stories:

Lost in a Pyramid, or the Mummy’s Curse (1869), Louisa May Alcott
The Man-Eating Tree (1875), Edmund Spencer
The Devil Tree (1883), Anonymous
Carnivorine (1889), Lucy H. Hooper
My One Gorilla (1890), Grant Allen
Lamparagua (1893), May Crommelin
The Flower of Death (1893), Flavel Scott Mines
The Man-Killing Tree of Ceylon (1893), Anonymous
The Death Plant of South Africa (1895), H. B. M. Buchanan
The Guardian of Mystery Island (1895), Edmond Nolcini
The Man-Trap Cactus (1895), Anonymous
A Flesh-Eating Plant (1901), Anonymous
The Gray Weed (1905), Owen Oliver
The Tale of the Scarlet Butterflies (1908), Beatrice Grimshaw
The Black Orchid (1910), Marjorie L. C. Pickthall
The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot (1910), Arthur Conan Doyle
Spores of Death (1913), Sax Rohmer
The Thunder Beast (1920), Joseph B. Ames
Orchid Death (1921), James Hanson
Drosera Cannibalis (trans. 1922), René Morot
The Malignant Flower (1927), Anthos