The Science of Harry Potter by Mark Brake

Author:Mark Brake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Racehorse Publishing
Published: 2017-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

DEVIL’S SNARE: WHAT ARE THE REAL-LIFE FLESH-EATING PLANTS?

Herbology is one of the many fascinating topics that students study at Hogwarts. Herbology is all about magical plants and fungi, and although it is sometimes overlooked, Professor Sprout’s lessons help Harry, Ron, and Hermione out of many sticky situations during their time at the Castle.

One of the deadliest plants that Harry encounters, both in and outside the herbology classroom, is Devil’s snare. In the golden trio’s Voldemort-busting adventure through the trapdoor, Devil’s snare is one of many trials that they have to overcome to reach the Sorcerer’s Stone. This particular magical plant has the startling ability to constrict around its prey, and as Ron and Harry discover, the more you struggle, the tighter it squeezes. Later in the series, Devil’s snare is featured as a deadly weapon more than once. Neville Longbottom and Professor Sprout position them strategically around the grounds during the Battle of Hogwarts to take down the giants and death eaters invading the Castle.

In another sinister scene, Devil’s snare is smuggled as a method of assassination into St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. A potted Devil’s snare was delivered to an unsuspecting comatose patient, Broderick Bode, and mistaken for an innocuous Christmas gift. The death eater responsible, Walden Macnair, was able to sneak the plant passed the Healers, where it strangled Bode to death before anyone could realize.

Luckily for Harry and Ron, there is an easy way to escape Devil’s snare. The harder you struggle against its grasp, the faster it starts to choke you, but if you keep still, you can trick the snare into relaxing its grip on you. Thanks to Professor Sprout’s herbology class, Hermione is able to escape its clutches and then manages to save a very panicked Ron by conjuring fire to make its tentacles recoil. However, while the fast-moving vines of the Devil’s snare are certainly impressive, there are just as many fascinating and deadly plants in real-world botany.

Nepenthes Rajah: King of the Pitcher Plants

First up is something that seems to have climbed right out of the wizarding world. nepenthes rajah sounds more like a spell or incantation rather than a plant. Originating in Malaysian Borneo, nepenthes rajah is a scrambling vine. This plant comes equipped with giant pitcher-shaped traps, the biggest of which have been known to capture and digest small mammals, frogs, and lizards. It’s a slow death, too. When the fated animal falls in, it is drowned and slowly digested by the liters of fluid sitting in the pitcher trap. The trap is essentially a cupped leaf with a waxy, slippery interior, making it difficult to climb out. Scholars have noted that the bodies of small rodents can take months to slowly digest, until finally all that remains within the plant’s fluid is the skeleton.

Ominously, the stem of nepenthes rajah has distinct climbing ambitions. It usually grows along the ground, but it will try to climb anything it comes into contact with and which can support it. And that stem is formidable.

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