Quiz! Puzzling Plants - with Anne Thomas

Curious Quiz, April 2025

I’m excited today to share my first ever co-created quiz with the brilliant

Anne Thomas

of Anne of Green Places. Anne is a ‘lover of plants and place, notetaker of nature, ecologist at CNRS, France studying at the intersection of plant ecology, biogeography, and climate change.’

She’s a fantastic poet who brings her knowledge of the natural world to her verse, and we produced a poetry trail in the Cambridge Botanic Garden together several years ago — it’s her birthday today so go and subscribe!

No hints and no secret connection this time. All the answers are related to plants or trees, some real, some fictional. See how many answers you get right and share how you did in the comments below.¹

Questions

1. In The Lord of the Rings, what is the symbol of Gondor?

2. Who was compared to a rose that ‘by any other name would smell as sweet?’

3. In a 1951 novel, which plants are capable of locomotion and start attacking people after a meteor shower?

4. What was struck by lightning after a proposal in Jane Eyre?

5. What kind of flowers line the yellow brick road as it approaches the Emerald City?

6. What type of wood is Harry Potter’s wand made of?

7. What is the name of the tree that holds up the world in Norse mythology?

8. In Dune what kind of tree is held sacred on the desert planet of Arrakis?

9. What was the real name of the Princess Bride?

10. Who wanted Seymour to feed it all night long?

11. What plant did the aliens cultivate using human blood in War of the Worlds?

12. Persephone ate six seeds from which fruit to guarantee her imprisonment in the underworld for half the year?

Answers

1. A White Tree.

2. Romeo (by Juliet).

3. Triffids.

4. A chestnut tree.

5. Poppies. If you guessed ‘tulips’ you’re thinking of Munchkinland.

6. Holly wood.

7. Yggdrasill.

8. Date palms.

9. Buttercup.

10. Audrey II (a carnivorous plant from outer space).

11. The ‘red weed’ or ‘red creeper.’

12. A pomegranate.

Did you get them all right? More than half? Let me know how you did below and remember to subscribe for more quizzes like this and share/recommend this substack to help it grow like the creepy little plant it is.

AND GO AND SUBSCRIBE TO ANNE TO WISH HER A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

1. All photos from the Cambridge Botanic Garden https://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/whats-on-at-cubg-spring-2024/