Reports of monstrous flesh-eating plants came often from Central and South America during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of the more interesting were recorded in "Science Jottings," a column in the Illustrated London News written by Dr. Andrew Wilson. He reported the following in the August 27, 1892, issue:
I have lately met with the description of a very singular plant, given originally, I believe, in a provincial newspaper. As one is always interested in the strange and weird as represented in nature, I give the account for what it is worth. It may be nothing more than a piece of fiction, of course (I have learned caution from more than one instance of a joke being stated in the gravest of terms); but if, on the contrary, the incident described was a real one, I shall expect to hear something more about this wonderful plant. Perhaps some of my readers may be able to inform me whether or not the matter is a "plant," vulgarly speaking, in another sense.
It appears that a naturalist, a Mr. Dunstan by name, was botanising in one of the swamps surrounding the Nicaragua Lake. The account goes on to relate that "while hunting for specimens he heard his dog cry out, as if in agony, from a distance. Running to the spot whence the animal's cries came, Mr. Dunstan found him enveloped in a perfect network of what seemed to be a fine, rope-like tissue of roots and fibres. The plant or vine seemed composed entirely of bare, interlacing stems, resembling more than anything else the branches of a weeping willow denuded of its foliage, but of a dark, nearly black hue, and covered with a thick, viscid gum that exuded from the pores. Drawing his knife, Mr. Dunstan attempted to cut the poor beast free, but it was with the very greatest difficulty that he managed to sever the fleshy muscular fibres (sic) of the plant. When the dog was extricated from the coils of the plant, Mr. Dunstan saw to his horror that the body was bloodstained, while the skin appeared to be actually sucked or puckered in spots, and the animal staggered as if from exhaustion. In cutting the vine the twigs curled like living, sinuous fingers about Mr. Dunstan's hand, and it required no slight force to free the member from their clinging grasp, which left the flesh red and blistered. The tree, it seems, is well known to the natives, who relate many stories of its death-dealing powers. Its appetite is voracious and insatiable, and in five minutes it will suck the nourishment from a large lump of meat, rejecting the carcass (sic) as a spider does that of a used-up fly." This is a very circumstantial account of the incident, but in such tales it is, of course, absurd "to leave such a matter to a doubt." If correct, it is very clear we have yet to add a very notable example to the list of plants which demand an animal dietary as a condition to their existence; and our sundews, Venus flytraps, and pitcher plants will then have to "pale their ineffectual fires" before the big devourer of the Nicaragua swamps.
In the September 24, 1892, issue, Dr. Wilson reports further:
"The 'snake-tree' is described in a newspaper paragraph as found on an outlying spur of the Sierra Madre, in Mexico. It has movable branches (by which I suppose, is meant sensitive branches), of a 'slimy, snaky appearance,' which seized a bird that incautiously alighted on them, the bird being drawn down till the traveller lost sight of it. Where did the bird go to? Latterly it fell to the ground, flattened out, the earth being covered with bones and feathers, the debris, no doubt, of former captures. The adventurous traveller touched one of the branches of the tree. It closed upon his hand with such force as to tear the skin when he wrenched it away. He then fed the tree with chickens, and the tree absorbed their blood by means of the suckers (like those of the octopus) with which its branches were covered."
In his 1911 book Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants, American folklorist Charles M. Skinner mentions a similar horror, the Rattle-snake Bush of Mexico, which was "a tree of serpents that wound its arms about men and animals that tried to pass, and stung and strangled them to death."
Finally, from the Field Museum of Natural History's Botany Leaflet 23, Carnivorous Plants and "The Man-Eating Tree" (1939), by Sophia Pryor, comes the story of the "Monkey-Trap Tree":
A recent report is credited to a Brazilian explorer named Mariano da Silva who returned from an expedition that led him into a district of Brazil that borders on Guyana. He had there sought out the settlement of Yatapu Indians. During his journey he saw a tree which nourishes itself on animals. The tree itself exudes a peculiar sharp odor which attracts its victims, especially monkeys. As soon as they climb the trunk, all is up with them, for very quickly they are completely closed in by the leaves, and one neither hears nor sees them again. After about three days the leaves open and let drop to the earth the bones, completely stripped.