text: The Madagascar tree The earliest known report of a man-eating plant originated as a literary fabrication written by journalist Edmund Spencer for the New York World.  Spencer's article first appeared in the daily edition of the New York World on 26 April 1874, and appeared again in the weekly edition of the newspaper two days later. In the article, a letter was published by a purported German explorer named "Karl Leche" (also spelled as Karl or Carl Liche in later accounts), who provided a report of encountering a human sacrifice performed by the "Mkodo tribe" of Madagascar: This story was picked up by many other newspapers of the day, which included the South Australian Register of 27 October 1874, where it gained even greater notoriety. Describing the tree, the account related:
  The slender delicate palpi, with the fury of starved serpents, quivered a moment over her head, then as if instinct with demoniac intelligence fastened upon her in sudden coils round and round her neck and arms; then while her awful screams and yet more awful laughter rose wildly to be instantly strangled down again into a gurgling moan, the tendrils one after another, like great green serpents, with brutal energy and infernal rapidity, rose, retracted themselves, and wrapped her about in fold after fold, ever tightening with cruel swiftness and savage tenacity of anacondas fastening upon their prey.