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Neville Longbottom , Herbology ’s star student .
We would bet that most Harry Potter fans at the series finale , which attain theaters on Friday , will be rooting primarily for its adorably bespectacled protagonist , who combat his curse Lord Voldemort in a CGA - filled , action - pack showdown . Here at GARDEN DESIGN , however , our tending is on Potter ’s Herbology - eff , second - string sidekick Neville Longbottom . As the only sincerely plant - loving appendage of the crowd , Neville ’s procession from a chubby - cheek boy that could n’t cast a summoning spell for his life-time to the brave sorcerer ( play by thenow - dashing Matthew Lewis ) and fierce withstander of his Friend and school day in the Battle of Hogwarts touches our hearts in a special way . To pay tribute to him and his best academic subject , Herbology , we have compile a listing of some of the most unusual wizard flora in J.K. Rowling ’s epos .
Mandrake Root
exemplification from Anonymous 15th century ms Tacuinum Sanitatus / Wikimedia Commons .
InHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , Neville and his classmates ' instauration to Herbology start with a class about how to care for mandrakes , the prof first demonstrating how to excavate the unusual plant - animals for repotting . Here we get a description of the grotesque industrial plant : " or else of root , a small-scale , sloughy , and passing atrocious infant come out out of the dry land . The foliage were growing powerful out of his head . " Professor Sprout sum up to the mathematical group of intimidated student that the plant babies emit scream that are piercing enough to knock out wizards for 60 minutes .
Even though in material life mandrake are not creature , but fully botanical members of the nightshade familySolanaceae , J.K. Rowling did n’t completely excogitate the idea of a mandrake baby . As Ed Valauskas , curator of the rare books collection at Chicago Botanical Garden ’s Lenhardt Library , pointed out in hislectureon plants have in the Harry Potter series , zoophytes , or plants that dual as animal , were prevailing in Renaissance botanic lore . He point out some examples of zoophytes in a book by sixteenth - hundred Gallic plant scientist Claude Duret entitledHistoire Admirable des Plants , the most strange of which is probably the vegetable Charles Lamb of Tatary , a George Bush that grows a ferocious Elia as its yield . allot to Valauskas , mandrakes were think of and document as having a human kind - both male and distaff - since ancient times .
Mermaid ’s wineglass ( Acetabularia mediterranea ) , is an alga that live in sub - tropic waters . Photo by : Albert Kok / Wikimedia Commons .
Gillyweed
InHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , Harry eats a industrial plant that reckon like " slimed , grayish - green rat tails , " which allow him to breathe underwater and communicate with mermen for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament . We do n’t know what industrial plant inspired the fabricated gillyweed , but it seems that J.K. Rowling based it on a case of seaweed , probably imagining a variety of magical transfer of properties . In other words , Harry want to have something that could " breathe " underwater , like seaweed , in order be able to do the same himself .
Mimbulus mimbletonia
Larryleachia perlatumcould easily be a stunt bivalent for Neville’sMimbulus mimbletonia . Photo by : Blossfeldiana / Flickr .
On the Hogwarts Express inHarry Potter and the ordering of the Phoenix , Neville solidifies his vegetation - nerd status by showing his classmates a gift that he get from his keen uncle for his 15th birthday - a plant that looks like a cactus but is covered in boils instead of spine . " It was pulsating somewhat , giving it the rather menacing look of some diseased intimate organ , " describes the narrator , see the plant through Harry Potter ’s eye . As Neville afterward exhibit , the plant spout out a dense , pungent liquidity call Stinksap out of its boils when provoked with magic . Like with the gillyweed , we have no theme what real plant J.K. Rowling base theMimbulus mimbletoniaon , but this weird - lookingLarryleachia perlatumseems to fit the bill .
Devil ’s trap
" Arbre Carnivore " from Sea and Land by J.W. Buel ( 1889)/Wikimedia Commons .
At the end ofHarry Potter and the Sorcerer ’s Stone , Hermione economize Ron and Harry by defeat a morose and dampness - bang flora whose foresightful tendrils wrapper around its prey , snuff it it to death with a outburst of " bluebell " flames from her verge . Always the square - A educatee , Hermione remember the direction to combat the plant from a old Herbology lesson .
Carnivorous trees have popped up now and again in various superstitious texts , including one outrageoustall taleinvented by a 19th - 100 German adventurer named Carl Liche who claimed to have seen an eight - foot - tall plant life with long hairy tendrils pick up a woman - supposedly belonging to what was later deemed a fictional Malagasy tribe - and raven her whole . Liche ’s story , which was written up as a non - fiction locomotion history in theSouth Australian Register , was later found to be altogether false .
Bubotubers
mayhap the one flora uglier than Neville’sMimbulus mimbletonia , bubotubers play a substantial comedic role inHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire . They are introduced in the beginning of the book as animate being that " look less like plants than thick , black , giant slugs … Each was worm slightly and had a bit of bombastic , shiny swellings upon it , which appear to be full of liquid . " Later , we get a line that Professor Sprout harvest the works ’s puss to treat acne . But an accident that touch Hermione further on in the book show that if the plant ’s untreated liquidity occur into link with skin , it will make huge boils to break through .
In woolgather up the fictitious bubotubers , JK Rowling seemed to have acquire a cue from the medieval herb doctor doctrine , the " doctrine of signatures , " which holds that flora that resemble certain body parts should be used in the treatment of ill that pertain to those parts . Her forge species ’s primary characteristic , spartan plant acne , resemble the condition it is supposed to bring around . For more info on medieval plants and their uses , insure out The Cloisters Museum & Gardens blog , The Medieval Garden Enclosed .
Wolfsbane
Aconitum variegatum . pic by : Bernd Haynold / Wikimedia Commons .
Wolfsbane is one of the chief ingredients in Wolfsbane Potion , a brewage that Remus Lupin uses throughout the series to alleviate the symptom of his lycanthrope transformation and retain control of his mental mental faculty . According to a Harry Potter - themed stake on the website of Botanic Gardens Conservation International , wolfsbane is actually a tangible industrial plant namedAconitumthat was think to be a defense against werewolves when mixed with beloved and glass in the Middle Ages . Because of this prevailing Medieval supersition , masses killed a large fate of Europe ’s wolves with the deadly admixture . In the same metre period , witches mixed wolfsbane with bella donna or mortal nightshade ( Atropa belladonna)-another poisonous plant that earn a few cameos in Professor Snape ’s potion class - to make a psychodelic drug that would allow them to feel like they were flying .
