Case file · Cryptid
The man-eating tree of Madagascar
In April 1874 the New York World printed a letter from a German explorer, 'Carl Liche', describing how the 'Mkodo tribe' of Madagascar sacrificed a woman to a tree whose tendrils crushed her and drank her blood.
1874 CE · -18.90, 47.52 · status: hoax
The account
The story was reprinted worldwide and revived in 1924 by Chase Osborn's 'Madagascar, Land of the Man-Eating Tree'. Searchers found no such tree, people or explorer. The point is symbolic, as the story gave no real place.
The sceptical view
An 1888 source named the World journalist Edmund Spencer as the author; Willy Ley concluded in 1955 that tree, tribe and explorer were all invented.