List of fictional plants

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This list of fictional plants describes invented plants that appear in works of fiction.

Contents

In fiction

In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth

In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series

Queen Beech-geograph-2900758.jpg
The Queen Beech or Harry Potter tree (now fallen). This real 400 year old pollarded tree in Frithsden Beeches on Berkhamsted Common "played" (with a bit of CGI tweaking) the Whomping Willow in the Harry Potter film The Prisoner of Azkaban . In 1866, it was at the centre of the Battle of Berkhamsted Common. It was also noted by the naturalist Richard Mabey in his book "Beechcombings". [12]

In Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere Series

On the planet Roshar (The Stormlight Archive)
On the planet Nalthis (Warbreaker)
On the planet First of the Sun (Sixth of the Dusk);
On the planet Taldain (White Sand Series)

In Dungeons & Dragons

The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons has a number of imaginary, according to Charles Elliott "not-very-ingenious", plant species, [15] as well as "a taxonomy of fungal horrors", which Ben Woodard considers eerie not only for their poisonous nature, but because many have the ability to move. [23]

In Monty Python's Flying Circus

The following plants appear in the David Attenborough sketch of the last Monty Python episode.

In Avatar

In the Avatar franchise, plants on Pandora have evolved according to the characteristics of their environment, which has an atmosphere that is thicker than on Earth, with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, xenon and hydrogen sulfide. Gravity is weaker in Pandora, thereby giving rise to gigantism. There is a strong magnetic field, causing plants to develop 'magneto-tropism'. A particularly intriguing quality of flora and fauna in Pandora is their ability to communicate with each other. This is explained in the movie as a phenomenon called 'signal transduction', pertaining to how plants perceive a signal and respond to it. [30] [31]

In video games

Video games frequently feature fictional plants as items that can be collected by the player, or occasionally appear as non-player characters.

In DC Comics

Appearing in DC Comics, the Black Mercy is an extraterrestrial hallucinogenic plant used a weapon by the supervillain Mongul. Mongul first uses it in "For the Man Who Has Everything", a story by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons that was first published in Superman Annual #11 (1985). The story was later adapted into the Justice League Unlimited episode of the same name. Supergirl has an episode called "For the Girl Who Has Everything", where in this version the plant was sent by Kryptonian Non. The story also served as an inspiration for the episode of Krypton , "Mercy", where in this version the plant was put on Lyta-Zod by her son from the future, General Zod. Described in the original story by Mongul as "something between a plant and an intelligent fungus", the Black Mercy attaches itself to its victims in a form of symbiosis, and feeds from the victim's "bio-aura". The organism is telepathic, and reads its victim's heart's desire, giving them a logical simulation and an ending that the victim wants, which the victim experiences an entirely immersive, virtual experience in which their actual surroundings are masked to them. According to Mongul, victims are capable of "shrugging off" the hallucination, though some find the experience too compelling to do so unaided. [33]

The Black Mercy is typically depicted as consisting of dark green, thorned vines that attach themselves to a humanoid victim's upper torso, with a set of pink flowers, each with a long, red, tentacle-like stigma, growing in the center of the victim's chest. When Mongul first uses the Black Mercy on Superman, they burrow through his costume and into his body, able to penetrate his otherwise invulnerable skin because, Wonder Woman senses, they are at least partially magical, which is one of Superman's weaknesses. During his experience with the organism, Superman's breathing appears faint, and his ability to sense the fraudulent nature of the simulation it feeds him and fight it manifests as tears produced by his actual eyes. The Black Mercy can be pulled off a victim by a strong humanoid such as Batman, and Mongul uses special protective gauntlets to handle the plant safely. [33] Superman is not able to awaken from the Black Mercy's simulation without help from Batman, though Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan are both able to do so in a subsequent storyline when they are both trapped by the same plant, as this meant that the two were sharing an illusion and Hal's strength of will caused Oliver to experience what Hal believed was his friend's greatest desire rather than Oliver making the choice himself. [34]

In the video game Injustice 2 , Supergirl mentions Black Mercy in pre-battle dialogue with Scarecrow. She states dealing with him is no different than dealing with Black Mercy, causing Scarecrow to ask her what is Black Mercy out of curiosity, causing Supergirl to describe it as an evil space plant.

Characters who have experienced the Black Mercy include:

In mythology

Hoaxes

See also

Further reading

Notes

  1. The Silmarillion , "Quenta Silmarillion", ch. 3 "Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor"
  2. The Silmarillion , "Quenta Silmarillion", ch. 8 "Of the Darkening of Valinor"

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