SOURCE: "The Garden of Fear" by Robert E. Howard (Marvel Tales, July-August 1934)

DESCRIPTION:"...And with a rustling hiss, they were on him. Their thick flexible stalks arched like the necks of serpents, their petals closed on his flesh. A hundred blossoms clung to him like the tentacles of an octopus, smothering and crushing him down...Those beyond reach swayed and writhed furiously as if seeking to tear up their roots in their eagerness to join their brothers. All over the field the great red blossoms leaned and strained toward the spot where the grisly battle went on... Then presently the blossoms detached themselves one by one from their victim who lay very white and still...The petals were each as broad as my hand, and as thick as a prickly pear, and on the inner side covered with innumerable tiny mouths, not larger than the head of a pin.  In the center, where the pistil should be, there was a barbed spike, of a substance like thorn, and narrow channels between the four serrated edges." ("The Garden of Fear" by Robert E. Howard)

NOTES: Hunwulf's method for destroying 'The Garden of Fear' is ingenious, for with the flowers guarding the base of the tower he can not even approach it.  The warrior stampedes a herd of mammoths that dwell near by, driving the huge beasts over the blood-drinking vines.  With the flowers crushed, Hunwulf then goes on to kill the villain and save his love.

HISTORY: I can imagine these plants were inspired by L. Frank Baum's narcotic poppies in The Wizard of Oz. Of course, Howard cranks it up a notch. Blood sucking plants did not originate with Howard, though he did describe their features at length unlike writers before him. See Purple Terror and The Strange Orchid. Barry Smith and Roy Thomas adapted this story in Conan the Barbarian #9 (August 1971).