Mysterious Magical Death-Weed Seeds

Posted on by inkbiotic
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Mysterious seeds

CNN –

States are warning people about suspicious packages of seeds that appear to be from China

I was reading the above story – how lots of gardeners across the US (and also UK) are randomly being sent unlabeled seeds from China and this is causing panic. The recipients are warned DON’T SOW THEM, WHATEVER YOU DO! CALL THE POLICE! STEP AWAY FROM THE SEEDS!

I was thinking that sounded interesting. And then I thought, Wait a minute! I’ve got some of those. So I went to my fridge and pulled out the little baggy of seeds in the photo.

How did I get them? Well during the lockdown I bought a load of seeds online – Coleus, Thunbergia, a few Cosmos for work. Partly to have something to put in my garden, partly for something to do. I thought they’d all arrived, but then an unmarked box arrived with this bag inside. No note or receipt, no email telling me I was getting a parcel, and no indication of what the seeds were. I assumed it was some I’d forgotten, and put them in the fridge since it was too late to plant them for this year.

I’m fairly sure that they are the seeds in the article, since they have the exact same label as the ones in this article. So I think I’ve been sent seeds from China as part of some, what? Attempt at an invasion? Are they triffids? I showed them too a friend and he said, ‘They don’t look like seeds, more like electronic circuits.’ Fabulous.

There’s talk that they are part of a scam called ‘brushing’, which is a way of getting reviews by sending people things and then stealing their details. To be honest it doesn’t make much sense to me – if they’ve already got access to my Amazon account, then surely they can post a review without giving me stuff. And it must cost a fortune to give away so many free seeds. So I am still not sure.

Just to add, I’m joining in with this because I love the mystery, but I’m still wary of these China are Evil stories that are so popular. It’s true that China is something of a superpower now, which means other (failing) superpowers such as the UK and the US feel threatened, and that leads to our media spreading fear. On the other hand, what is reported as happening to the Uighurs in China is horrific, so I’m not sure their government is especially benevolent. But the shittiness of a government definitely doesn’t mean the people of that country are shitty (I really hope or I’m screwed too). And I know plenty of Chinese people who are lovely. So an addendum to this seed mystery is: is this an innocent mistake that UK/US press are distorting to spread ill-feeling about China? Or are these robot-controlled, demon-summoning, mind-controlling, triffid seeds?

I’m going to have to plant the seeds, aren’t I?

 

 

51 thoughts on “Mysterious Magical Death-Weed Seeds”

  1. Seed pods…like in “Invasion of the body snatchers.” Its Okay to plant them. I suspect they will grow fast with the gardening knowledge you possess. However, don’t go to sleep near the garden. Gee, you gave me a scene idea for something Im writing… while wide awake.

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    1. How about if I set up a tent on my lawn, then I could check on the seed growth. And then when my phone is found in a puddle of slime, on it they will discover the last video I shot: the silhouette of a twisting tendril against the side of the tent.
      I’m glad your writing is going well!

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      2. Damn. Can you keep an eye out if my posting style suddenly changes. If so, just say ‘Have you drunk all the orange juice?’ and if I say ‘Yes, but I have some lychee.’ Then everything is fine. If not, you may have to kill me before I spread.

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    1. Then I’ll be rich. Either 5G is just a fast form of Internet, in which case I can charge people to sit near my mast plant or for me to rent it out. OR 5G is spreading sickness and control throughout the world, in which case I can blackmail the government.
      And presumably with all that new-fangled, barely-understood radiation I’ll develop some kind of superpower.

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      2. I’d have to work out what I want to achieve. If I want to sort out all the shitty politicians and corporations and work to create a better world, then the power of invisibility mixed with being able to inflict certain powerful emotions at a touch. I’m thinking crippling guilt, unstoppable determination and complete calm. They work on sociopaths too and I can get up close to who ever needs to experience them because I can be invisible. Soon it would all change.

        That’s not particularly exciting though. And I would like to run up walls and jump really high. Like Spiderman. I just don’t think I’d be able to bring governments down with that, I’d be too busy running along the rooves in London.

        As a newly superempowered person, my friends would also have to have powers. I only have to wave my radioactive seeds at them. So what’s YOUR power going to be?

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      3. I’ve always fancied just being able to look at somebody when they’re being an asshole, for them to instantly realise what they’re doing and stop it. I don’t know if this counts, but it’s as good as it gets. Also the power to turn water into whisky would be handy…

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      4. Yes! Maybe it’s a common desire, but I wanted to be able to make people see how others see them, an instant self-awareness. It would be devastating if used irresponsibly though :O

        Water into whisky could also make you rich. So you wouldn’t have to work. So you could sit around drinking whisky all day. I see no down side.

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    1. That’s a great website. It came up with a lot of different possibilities though. It will help narrow things down when the seeds start growing.

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  5. Oh, and if we want to go the conspiracy route, maybe Monsanto has hacked Amazon and sends them out because they are an invasive weed that can only be killed with roundup. 🤔

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  6. I rather like you alive, Petra. So, don’t sleep next to it. The seed that people are warned against is this: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/28/gardeners-warned-not-plant-mystery-seeds-disguised-jewellery/
    But I would suggest not planting it if it comes free. I haven’t heard of free meals.
    And I remember the crazy Anthrax filled letters people would get. Some plants can kill an entire garden in a few days and it keeps on popping up, no matter how many times you uproot them. Cannabis sativa (bhang) is a common example… and you never know, it could be a doused with quick growing weeds that strangle fox babies at night.

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    1. The fox babies are all grown up now, I bet they could take on a rampant plant. Weirdly enough, I’m part way through writing a book with quick growing weeds. They are engineered as a way to solve world hunger, because they are edible. But then they get out of control and grow over everything. If somebody is in bed, they’ll start creeping over their face to smother them.

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      1. Wow! Sounds scary! I wish I can get ideas like that…and have the patience to build on one. 2000 words is the limit I’m yet to cross. When I get 10,000 words dicument from client to build a training, I cut them down to 1,000…or less…and tell them it is too long for learners. (And me!)

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      2. Ah, but then you wouldn’t have time for writing little stories and taking photos and the world would be a sorrier place 🙂

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  7. Is The Day of the Triffids fiction, or a a modern day prophecy? Is this a strain of Japanese knotweed or Himalayan Balsam?? Is the packet the sample came in postmarked Wuhan??? Be extremely cautious, especially if wires are sticking out of them…

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    1. I’ll be wearing gloves, a mask, one of those white paper suits and I’ll sow the seed in a pot inside a plastic bag. Don’t worry, I’m taking this seriously. I was going to drench the soil in bleach, but apparently ‘Plants don’t like that’ according to my boss.

      Funnily enough, I reread Day of the Triffids recently, and Wyndham did a great job on writing about the botany of the triffid. It sounded fascinating- I’d love a little triffid of my own.

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      4. Hey that’s a coincidence, a friend just sent me a link to this article! Seems they’ve turned up in Portugal too, hmm, very odd.
        No one has worked out what they are yet though. I’m confused journalists haven’t found anyone who’s grown them.

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  9. That’s actually a really good point that I didn’t think about: the “China is evil” angle. I’ve seen the story about the seeds of course, but now that you point that out, yeah…considering COVID-19 was initially thought to have been from someone eating a bat (which isn’t true) and of course our president dumb ass calling it the “Chinese virus” (ughhh but forever), I shouldn’t be surprised.

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    1. It’s a tricky one. Ironic that with our massively increased access to information, we can’t really know anything for sure because so much of it is lies told for an agenda. Maybe that’s why people latch so fiercely onto extreme ideas, because when nothing is certain, you might as well go for emotional ‘truths’ that make you feel important/special.

      I don’t know the solution. Is there one?

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      1. It’s something that has to be tackled from the foundation up. Like sad as it is there are some people who will never believe verified facts no matter what you do or how you present them. They’re caught between Dunning-Kruger and cognitive dissonance. It’s like it’s not even that people are ignorant. They don’t even KNOW they’re ignorant and think they’re informed because they don’t realize how ignorant they are. The idea of someone THAT much smarter than them is out of their reach because they’re not smart enough to realize it. A better education system where children are taught how to think and problem solve as opposed to be told what to think would help, but of course there’s always an agenda. It doesn’t server authoritarianism to have people questioning thing. Like I think about how you still have the “You’ll do what you’re told” style of parenting where kids can’t disagree with their parents without it being seen as disrespectful and I’m like ugh. Some people grow out of that, but other people just grow up into it and perpetuate the same patterns onto their own offspring.

        Conspiracy theories are so popular because it answers the big questions in a simple way: someone is behind this. It’s…comforting in a way because it gives you an enemy to fight when in reality it’s actually a series of separate problems. If you can blame someone on a big government entity that you know you’ll never be able to take down then you can feel like at least someone is in control. And the thing is it’s not wrong to mistrust the government, but like everything else, it’s not just a simple game of either or. You have to think about things, dig deeper. Perfect example is GMOs. GMOs are safe, but Monsanto, the big company (at least here) that produces them is terrible. They want to sue people for growing their crops without permission when the wind could literally blow the seeds into another field. So yeah, they blow, but the idea behind GMOs isn’t. It’s like…everything gets tangled up and people don’t have the equipment to untangle it and deal with the actual problem. It’s frustrating.

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      2. Well, I agree with all of that, and it is mighty frustrating. It’s difficult to know where you would start untangling this, although I agree that analytical education is a big part.

        For a while I kept getting caught up in ‘debates’. I would read people saying something bigoted and extreme and try and argue with them. but the arguments always ended with some angry tangle of nonsense that I couldn’t get out of. I was confused why it kept happening, then I talked to a Greek friend of mine about arguments. She said that arguing in the UK was weird because everybody was just trying to destroy their ‘opponent’. She said all that mattered was winning the argument, so you could use tricks, lies or just aggression to win.

        She said that in Greece it’s different. Because they have such a history of how to discuss, the most important thing when arguing is to listen and learn. To find where ideas agree and where they disagree and then look for the problem to be solved. It was like a revelation.

        Now Greece has other problems (I asked if all this discussion meant it was difficult to actually make a decision and she said yes) but if we had the attitude that the point of discussion was to understand why we were disagreeing in the first place and to calmly analyse that, it would have to help, right?

        I’ve tried to focus and learn when somebody wants a debate (essentially a competition) and when they want a discussion (which involves listening and learning) and just avoid the debates. Which is still a problem, because the number of debaters are growing and getting more and more extreme. But I have no clue how to stop them.
        🤷

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      3. It’s the same thing here in the US! It’s not about being right per se; it’s about winning with the added bonus of making your opponent look stupid/foolish. It’s why people like Ben Shapiro are such a huge hit with the right over here. He babbles absolute nonsense, but because he speaks quickly, throws out several points at a time, and doesn’t give anyone the chance to respond, he’s seen as a master debator. It’s not about exchanging ideas; it’s about dominating your opponent and mkaing them look stupid so that obviously what they’re saying is invalid. It’s like the absolute ad hominem attack, and it’s frustrating as hell.

        That makes total sens that Greece would have that point of view when you look at their history. Socrates would debate his students, and that was how he taught. It wasn’t about making them look stupid; it was about exchanging ideas.

        I’m trying to initially approach things not with the need to do what debators do as in make the person look foolish even if they absolutely are a complete ass. Because if they are, I don’t need to point that out; they’re already doing it. Sometimes people are complete lost causes which is when I turn to my store of memes 😀

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      4. Aha! And now I understand something. I thought memes were just meant to be funny and I didn’t get why people would use them in a supposedly important discussion. I thought it was childish. But now I see that’s the point! Because if you realise a conversation is never going to be productive and is only going to be stressful and unpleasant, memes become a shield of silliness to protect you from that.

        Imagine Shapiro (who irritates the piss out of me!) being lightly slapped in the face with a picture of Grumpy Cat every time he starts that lifeless sneery drone of his.

        The warriors march into battle armed only with their swords of reason and their shields of memes!

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      5. if I’m having a discussion with someone who’s reasonable, I’d never throw in a snarky meme to discredit what they’re saying, but so many times on the internet you run into these walls who are just not worth your time, and then memes are just a lifesaver :p

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