I Have Always Been Fascinated,

by plants that eat living creatures,

but I never knew that one could consume a sheep, until now!, photograph via triplancar.com the plant in question is known as the "sheep-eating" plant (Puya Chilensis), and has actually flowered for the first time since it was planted outdoors in Surrey around 10 years ago, it does not actually eat sheep, but as Matthew Pottage, curator at RHS Wisley, told Sky News: "There's no physical chewing up of sheep, in their native environment they form huge big hummocks of these big thorny leaves, so any grazing animal nearby, could be a sheep because they've obviously got a lot of fur, goes in for shelter and shade from sun and then has the ability to basically get stuck, they've got all these big backwards facing barbs so anything that's stuck in there, stays there, decomposes, but then feeds and fertilises the plant." Mr Pottage said: "It's generally not something that grows through the winter in this part of the country successfully, so for it to be growing here and flowering here is something that we're quite proud of." note to sheep farmers in Surrey, keep them well away from Wisley!