Triffid

Name: Triffid

AKA: Mankind's savior

Location: Taking over the world

Novel: The Day of the Triffids

Author: John Wyndham




Natural History:
Rather than explain a Triffid to you in her own words, The Author was able to obtain an eyewitness account from William Masen, the scientific leader in Triffid knowledge:

"I have a picture in my memory now of him (Masen's father) examining ours and puzzling over it at a time when it must have been a year old. In almost every detail it was a half-size replica of a fully grown triffid-only it didn't have a name yet, and no one had seen one fully grown. My father leaned over, peering at it through his horn-rimmed glasses, fingering its stalk, and blowing gently through his gingery mustache, as was his habit when thoughtful. He inspected the straight stem, and the woody bole from which it sprang. He gave curious, if not penetrative, attention to the three small, bare sticks which grew straight up beside the stem. He smoothed the short sprays of leathery green leaves between his finger and thumb as if their texture might tell him something. Then he peered into the curious, funnel-like formation at the top of the stem, still puffing reflectively, but inconclusively, through his mustache. I remember the first time he lifted me up to look inside that conical cup and see the tightly wrapped whorl within. It looked not unlike the new, close-rolled frond of a fern, emerging a couple of inches from a sticky mess in the base of the cup. I did not touch it, but I knew the stuff must be sticky because there were flies and other small insects struggling in it."

The Triffid's origin's are unknown, but Masen believes they are the result of ingenious biological meddling. Appearing out of nowhere and solving the worlds oil crisis. Yes, Triffids were kept on farms and bred for their oil, which eliminated the use of fossil fuels. On a fateful night, however, the human race became part of the food chain and the Triffids top meal. On the night of a spectacular meteor shower that lit up the sky in an eerie green hue, the human race went blind. The Triffids escaped the farms, wild ones joining packs, and began to hunt for food. Overwhelming the Earth, Triffids became the dominate species and are still hunting humans today.

Masen and a group of survivors escaped to an island, a colony known as Elspeth Cray. I have looked through their history and while the Triffids dominate the landscape, humanity carries on and endures.

"...-in other words, they know what they're doing. Look at it this way. Granted that they do have intelligence; then that would leave us with one important superiority--sight. We can see, and they can't. Take away our vision, and the superiority is gone. Worse than that--our position becomes inferior to theirs, because they are adapted to a sightless existence and we are not."