The Flowering of the Strange Orchid, by H. G. Wells, introduces a botanical vampire. An orchid collector is found dead in a jungle in the Andaman Islands, with a strange bulb lying near him. This is brought to England and carefully tended by a botanist until it comes to flower. But when at last the blossoms burst open great tendrils suddenly reach out to grasp the man sucking his blood with hideous gusts. The unfortunate wretch has to be violently torn away from the plant which drips with blood scarce in time to save his life.
This idea closely resembles Fred M. White’s story, The Purple Terror, which appeared in the Strand Magazine, September, 1899, Vol. xviii, No. 105. Here Lieutenant Will Scarlett, an American officer and a number of his men have to make their way across a certain tract of Cuban Territory. Spending the night in a country posada they are attracted by a pretty dancing girl who is wearing twined round her shoulders a garland of purple orchids larger than any known variety. The blossoms which a blood-red centre exhale a strange exotic perfume. Scarlett is fired with the enthusiasm of giving a new orchid to the horticultural world, and on the following morning a native, named Tito, undertakes to guide him to the spot. He learns that the natives call them “the devil’s poppies” and that the flowers grow in the high trees where their blossoms cling to long green tendrils. As night falls the little company arrives at a plateau ringed by tall trees whose branches are crowned with great wreaths of the purple flower nestling amid coils of long green ropery. To their alarm they note that the ground is covered with bleaching bones, the skeletons of men, animals, and birds alike. Yet perforce they must camp there rather than risk the miasma of the lower valley. Scarlett keeps watch. In the darkness there is a rustling sound and suddenly a long green tendril furnished at the end with a sucker armed with sharp spines like teeth descends and snatches one of the men from the ground. As it is about to withdraw Scarlett with inconceivable swiftness slashes it through with his knife. But the man’s clothing has even in that moment been cut through by the razor spines and his body is marked by a number of punctures where his blood is oozing in great drops. Immediately half-a-dozen and more lithe living cords with fanged mouths fall groping for their prey. The men are hurriedly awakened and with
