Man Eating Tree Madagascar travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises, spa and resorts

Man-eating tree can refer to any of various legendary carnivorous plants that are large enough to kill and consume a person or other large animal. The earliest well known report of a man-eating tree originated as a hoax was in still heavily-forested country Madagascar. With ninety percent of its indigenous flora found nowhere else in the world, it’s a jungle in which anything could be lurking. 

I’m going to relate a true story. Once a German explorer Carl Liche led a group of Mkodo tribesmen deep into the heart of darkness. Liche was in front of something that no white man has ever seen: a trunk ‘like a pineapple eight feet high’, with thick leaves hanging to the ground from its peak, and sinister 7-foot tendrils stretching in every direction.

Most reports say it has a short, thick trunk and long tendrils of some sort which are used to catch prey. In J.W. Buel’s Land and Sea (1887), the plant is said to catch and consume large insects, but also attempts to consume humans.

The sundews’ bright colours and nectar lure insects to land on the ‘glandular tentacles’ that protrude from their leaves. Upon landing, the insect’s fate is sealed. A sticky gum holds it fast to the plant. Each of the tentacles slowly begins to bend towards the insect, coating it further in this killer glue. Digestive juices break down the insect’s soft parts. Several days later, this miniature ‘coffin’ will re-open, casting the insect’s remains to the wind. Sound familiar?