Sledgehammer Plant of Bhangbhangduc

Illustration by Vladimir Stankovich for The Discworld Emporium, who will be pleased to sell you this and other artworks at a competitive price

A carnivorous plant with an attitude. Unlike the Venus Flytrap, which we have on the best authority is not as interesting as people seem to think it is and which might half-heartedly trap and absorb a housefly once in a while, this has bigger ambitions.

Many an unwary traveller has disappeared forever, owing to not noticing the well-concealed sledgehammer concealed in the verdant greenery. Also known in The Compleat Discworld Atlas as the Sledgehammer Shrub, it is believed that incautious research scientists who may well be the horticultural equivalent of Bergholt Stuttley Johnson have not only imported examples to the top-secret Cabbage Down research institute, they are cross-breeding it to the livelier variants of cabbage to be found in the Sto Plains. What they intend to do with it in a military context is unclear, but it is hinted that there may be a peace dividend involved. Civil engineers are interested in the potential for driving supporting piles through unyielding rock or frozen Hub tundra, and it is rumoured that Doctors dealing with those difficult patients would appreciate a means of delivering suppositories into orifices hitherto thought too unyielding to accept them. The Assassins' Guild may also be funding the research, with a view to concluding those more professionally satisfying contracts involving extreme prejudice and which require more than the usual emphatic hint that the client has really annoyed people.

The Sapu Tree of Sumtri is by all accounts worse, but the Pyramid Strangler Vine is largely vegetarian, preying on more stupid plants, and perhaps the occasional rat for variety.