nathanandersonart:

Name: Vegetable Lamb, Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, Scythian Lamb, Borometz
Area of origin: Various, Medieval origins

The Vegetable Lamb is a legendary Cryptid Zoophyte; an animal that resembles plantlife. It is said to have been found in Central Asia, and has appeared in different texts from a myriad of cultures across time. The myth goes that there was a plant believed to grow sheep as opposed to fruit or other crops. The sheep that would be grown from its stalks were tied to the plant through an umbilical cord cemented in its roots. This would physically prevent the sheep from wandering too far from the plant, but also only allowed them to graze the land surrounding it. When all accessible foliage was eaten, the sheep would die and so would the plant. Apparently the blood of the lamb tasted sweet like honey, though this detail isn’t present in all variations of the myth. Underlying the myth is a real plant which supposedly is the basis for the creature. Cibotium Barometz is a species of tree fern native to areas of China and to the western side of the Malay Peninsula. The plant had a hairy, wool-like covering and a strange grouping of roots that when cut, resembled the shape of a small quadrupedal animal.