Nature provides us with endless entertainment. Upon exploring caves, deserts, and forests, scientists have documented sights that look as if they came out of a science fiction movie. The strange and wacky ways plants protect themselves shows you how talented Mother Nature’s creations can be. These extraordinary plants are stealthy, creative and very different from the garden variety you’re used to seeing.
1. Corpse Flower
This rare 200-pound plant grows in the forests of Sumatra and is famous for its rotting corpse-like stench. While this plant looks like one giant flower, it’s actually comprised of thousands of small flowers, male and female.
2. Strangler Figs
This is a killer tree that grows up and down other trees, choking them of sunlight and stealing their nutrients. The host tree often dies and the strangler remains with a hollow center.
3. Lithops Julli
This southern African plant is colloquially called a pebble plant or living stone because it pretends to be a rock to avoid being eaten. Some species also produce small flowers.
4. Bear’s Head Tooth Mushroom
This mop-head like mushroom grows on dead or dying tree trunks. It’s also edible and can stimulate nerve growth, help kill roundworms and fight cancerous cells.