Selfies Further Endanger Rare Phallic Plant, Conservationists Fear

In Cambodia, video of women suggestively joking around with a protected carnivorous specimen prompted a government admonition: Hands off, people.

The three women shrieked and giggled as they plucked the tubular pitchers from rare carnivorous plants in the mountains of Cambodia. The phallic shape of the pitchers reminded them of something, they joked as a friend filmed the scene with a phone.

“Everyone! This looks very familiar to me, like I have seen it before,” a woman in a blue dress says as she enthusiastically grabs the pitchers of the Nepenthes mirabilis plant. “There are a lot of them here. Oh my god!”

The women broke off some of the distinctive appendages, which the plants use to trap insects. Holding them suggestively for the camera, they compared the pitchers’ sizes to the physique of different men from various parts of Cambodia. “I want all of them,” says the woman in blue, displaying four plucked pitchers for the camera.

In full: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/world/asia/cambodian-plant-video.html

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