8 Seriously Bizarre Scientific Theories From History
8. Vegetable Lamb Of Tartary
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary was a type of exotic plant once believed to grow sheep as its fruit.
No, really.
The Greeks were the first to reference this and it was thought that the plant would sprout a young lamb with a stem attached like an umbilical cord.
The lamb would then graze in a circle around the plant as far as the stem/umbilical would allow them to wander and, once all of the food within reach was gone, both sheep and plant would die.
The idea was picked up by Europeans in the 14th Century and the creature was depicted as fact in all sorts of diagrams and maps.
The Medieval folks weren't stupid, they knew how lambs were born in their own country, but this was an age in which all sorts of bizarre tales from far off lands were filtering in. Lands in which giant grey animals had tusks and long noses and this was their idea of a crocodile. The Vegetable Lamb was just one of many bizarre creatures that lay beyond the edge of the map.
It's thought that the misunderstanding came from an early description of Indian cotton plants, describing them as trees on which wool grows. Now, as far as they were concerned, wool comes from sheep and thus the logical leap was made.
Bless.