The plants seemed to go through three stages. Freshly sprouted, they were no more than a foot high, with creepers spreading out a yard or so to either side and kill-pods the size of walnuts. In this stage they seemed to get most of their food by photosynthesis and ate nothing larger than insects. They looked harmless, even cute; something to decorate a fashionable greenhouse or the lobby of an expensive hotel.

In their second stage, the plants were still not dangerous to a full-grown human being, but anything smaller was safer staying away from them. The main stalks grew six feet high and as thick as Blade's thigh. The creepers spread out forty or fifty feet in all directions, and the branches, which resembled giant tendrils, developed killpods the size of watermelons. Eventually these tendril-like branches reached upward and outward, growing the large, golden-orange leaves. At this stage also the plant developed a whole new set of pods and creepers to trap and eat birds. The creepers on the ground could be so nearly invisible that Blade walked into them several times and always worked up a sweat getting clear.

In the third stage, the killer plants were perfectly capable of dealing with a man. They still had to get most of their nourishment like normal plants, because Blade couldn't imagine that there were enough large animals in this jungle stupid enough to wander into the creepers. Nonetheless, the killer plants were superbly equipped to feed on any animal available. The creepers could restrain a horse and the pods could very nearly swallow one. If one pod couldn't engulf the whole prey, a second or even a third would descend and go to work.

The mature plants came in two forms. There were those that formed the solid groves like the one Blade had first entered. Some of these groves were a mile or more on a side. Then there were the solitary «rogue» plants-not as spectacular as those in the groves but a good deal more dangerous.