True Tales and Tall Tales

Have you ever read a story in which the hero was a plant?

In Scotland, the people tell a story about how thistle plants saved a king.

Have you ever heard about a plant people hunt for with pigs? Or about a girl who turned into a plant? Or about a country that was nearly ruined by a plant?

There are many stories, true and make-believe, about plants. Here are a few of them.

The plant that saved a king

Thistles aren’t the sort of flower that people like to pick. They aren’t very pretty and they have prickly leaves that hurt you if you touch them. And thistles grow so quickly and thickly that they…

The flower that tells of battles

More than a thousand years ago, says an old French tale, there lived a holy man now known as Saint Leonard. One day he gave away all his money and everything he owned. Then he went to live by himself…

The hunting of the truffle

Truffles, like mushrooms, are a kind of fungus. But unlike mushrooms, truffles grow underground. That makes them hard to find. Truffles are so tasty that people often spend many hours hunting for…

The girl who became a flower

Long ago, the people in Greece believed that the sun was a god named Helios, who drove across the sky in a chariot pulled by four horses. There is a Greek tale about a girl named Clytie who fell in…