The man-eating tree of Madagascar was only the first hoax of its type. Newspapers planted a forest of tree-monster stories in the years that followed. Botanist Sophia Prior considered several of these sensational tales in her 1939 book Carnivorous Plants and “the Man-Eating Tree.” She explained that these monsters were inspired by smaller real carnivorous plants:
Plants capturing and consuming animals for food provide a striking instance of reversal of the prevailing order of things. The phenomenon…has stimulated the inventive imagination of many authors of natural history fantasies.
As a result readers of Sunday Magazine supplements have been startled from time to time by stories of vegetable monsters as formidable and incredible as dragons and werewolf or other…nightmares of medieval zoology.