Wednesday, January 07, 2004 :::
More Weird Newspaper Stories
Between feeling uncreative and seemingly spending all my free time looking at old newspapers for the railroad company, all you folks seem to have to look forward to are weird and disgusting newspaper stories:
From the December 30, 1857 North Carolina Standard:
THE VEGETABLE SERPENT -- A new organization of nature, being pronounced by naturalists the connecting link between animal and vegetable life, has been found in the interior of Africa, in the form of a serpent with a flower for a head. This singular freak of nature is spotted in the body, drags itself along, and the flower forming its head is bell-shaped, and contains a viscid fluid. Flies and other insects, attracted by the smell of the juice, enter into the flower, where they are caught by adhesive matter. The flower then closes, and remains shut until the prisoners are transformed into chyle. The indigestible portion, such as heads and wings, are thrown out by aspiral opening. The vegetable serpent has a skin resembling leaves, a white and soft flesh, and instead of a bony skeleton and cartilaguous frame, filled with yellow marrow. The natives consider it a delicious food.
::: posted by tom at 11:39 AM
