In the depths of Thailand's shaded forests, where sunlight is blocked from reaching the damp ground, botanists have discovered a strange creature that seems to have just emerged from a horror movie screen. A small, almost black flower, protruding from among the fallen leaves, gazes with its "glowing eyes," at passersby through spots of orange tinged with red, while 3 long tails resembling horns rise from its head.
This bizarre plant, named "Thismia daemona" or "devil's flower" by researchers, not only boasts a terrifying appearance but also goes further by challenging the simplest rules of known plant life; it does not turn towards the sun and does not need its light to survive.
According to the specialized scientific site "ScienceAlert," the new plant discovered by researchers from Chulalongkorn University and Prince of Songkla University in Thailand, with details published in the journal "PhytoKeys," completely lacks chlorophyll, the green pigment primarily responsible for photosynthesis and converting light into food.
Instead of relying on the sky and sunlight, the "devil's flower" has invented an alternative and bizarre survival strategy; it depends on a system scientifically known as "mycoheterotrophy." The plant hides under layers of fallen leaves for most of its life, extending its pale root network resembling coral reefs, to siphon and acquire carbon and nutrients directly from fungi extending beneath the soil, only surfacing for brief periods to flower and produce fruit.
The discovery of this plant in May 2025 inside Thong Fa Bum Park at an altitude of nearly 1,000 meters above sea level came as a shocking surprise to scientists; this species has adapted to a seasonal mountainous environment unlike its relatives in the "fairy lantern" genus, which usually inhabit low, extremely humid rainforests.
Threatened before exploration
Although precise genetic analyses of the DNA have confirmed the range expansion of this plant group northward into Thailand, raising the number of registered species there to 16, the joy of this discovery quickly mixed with alarm bells.
Scientists have only recorded a single plant community of the "devil's flower," consisting of no more than 50 plants, confined to an extremely narrow geographical area of no more than 0.05 square kilometers. And despite being located within a nature reserve, tourist foot traffic may crush these rare flowers or destroy the fragile fungal network they rely on, prompting researchers to assign an initial assessment classifying it as an "extremely endangered species."
This discovery proves that nature still holds its mysteries in the most frequented places, and that strange and unknown species may not be hidden in remote jungles, but could be right under our feet among the fallen leaves.