Not to be confused with Trifid. "Triffids" redirects here. For the
Australian band, see The Triffids. The triffid is a fictitious, tall,
mobile, prolific and highly venomous plant species, the titular antagonist in
John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids and Simon Clark's 2001 sequel
The Night of the Triffids. Triffids were also featured in the 1957 BBC radio
dramatization of Wyndham's book, a considerably altered 1962 film
adaptation, a more faithful 1981 television serial produced by the BBC,
and in a 2009 two-part TV series also produced by the BBC.
Since 1951, when The Day of the Triffids was first published, the word "triffid"
has become a popular British English colloquial term for large, overgrown or
menacing-looking plants. Fictional history
= Origins= The origin of the triffid species is
never fully revealed in Wyndham's novel. The novel's central character, Bill
Masen, dismisses the idea that they are a naturally occurring species, or that
they are extraterrestrial in origin: My own belief, for what that is worth,
is that they were the outcome of a series of ingenious biological
meddlings—and very likely accidental, at that. Had they been evolved anywhere but
in the region they were, we should doubtless have had a well‑documented
ancestry for them. The 1981 TV series and some editions of
the book have Masen speculating that the triffids were the creation of the
real-life Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko. According to Masen's narration,
the triffids first came to the attention of the Western world when a man named
Umberto Christoforo Palanguez presented the Arctic & European Fish Oil Company
with a mysterious vegetable oil originating from Russia. Once the
scientists of Arctic & European realised how potent the oil was, Palanguez' offer
to smuggle some seeds of the plant out of Russia was accepted. Palanguez
disappeared, but Masen guesses that his plane carrying the triffid seeds was
shot down by the Red Air Force, allowing the seeds to be carried all over the
globe by wind. = Name=
According to Wyndham's novel, the name Triffid alludes to the plant's three
leg-like protusions and was originally "trifid", Latin for "split into three
parts". = Initial outbreaks and exploitation=
The first triffid outbreaks occur in Indochina, where they receive little
press attention, until triffids appear in Sumatra, Borneo, Belgian Congo,
Colombia, Brazil and other equatorial regions. Although they develop faster in
tropical zones, triffids soon establish themselves worldwide outside the polar
and desert regions. When it is discovered that triffids are predatory,
they are almost exterminated until they are identified as the source of the
valuable oil. Upon discovery that docking their stingers renders them
harmless, docked triffids soon become fashionable in public and private
gardens. As it takes triffids two years to fully regrow their stings, captive
triffids are safe if pruned annually. Triffid farms are built to produce
triffid oil, which is of greater quality when taken from undocked specimens.
= During and after the Great Blinding= After a large part of the Earth's human
population is rendered blind by a brightly coloured comet shower, triffids
escape confinement and kill large numbers of people. They soon overrun
mainland Europe and the British Isles, thus forcing the majority of survivors
to escape to the Isle of Wight and other islands.
In Simon Clark's 2001 book, The Night of the Triffids, set 25 years after the
events of Wyndham's original book, triffids in the British Isles are still
valued as energy and food sources. Owing to an annual cull, Triffids remain
absent on the Isle of Wight, until they are transported there by large floating
mats of debris and vegetation. Triffids also become more aggressive, as a comet
shower has blotted out the sun and thus necessitates them to increase their
nutritional intake. In North America, standard triffids develop a form of
echolocation, swamp-dwelling triffids become fully aquatic and a small number
of giant triffids attack New York. Members of the Algonquin tribe escape
attack in their immunity to triffid venom. By the end of the sequel, it is
revealed that owing to their constant exposure to small doses of triffid venom
in their food, a quarter of the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight are
also immune to triffid venom, thus encouraging them to return to the
British mainland. Characteristics
= Appearance and habits= According to the novel, the fictitious
triffid can be divided into three components: base, trunk, and head. In
The Day of the Triffids, adult triffids are described as 7 feet in height.
European triffids never exceed 8 feet, while those in tropical areas can reach
10 feet. In The Night of the Triffids, a small number of North American triffids
reach 60 feet in height. The base of a triffid is a large
muscle-like root mass, comprising three blunt appendages. When dormant, these
appendages draw nutrients, as on a normal plant. When active, triffids use
these appendages to propel themselves. The character Masen describes the
triffid's locomotion as such: When it "walked" it moved rather like a
man on crutches. Two of the blunt "legs" slid forward, then the whole thing
lurched as the rear one drew almost level with them, then the two in front
slid forward again. At each "step" the long stem whipped violently back and
forth; it gave one a kind of seasick feeling to watch it. As a method of
progress it looked both strenuous and clumsy—faintly reminiscent of young
elephants at play. One felt that if it were to go on lurching for long in that
fashion it would be bound to strip all its leaves if it did not actually break
its stem. Nevertheless, ungainly though it looked, it was contriving to cover
the ground at something like an average walking pace.
Above the base are upturned leafless sticks which the triffid drums against
its stem. The exact purpose of this is not fully explained in The Day of the
Triffids; it is originally assumed that they are used to attract mates, but Bill
Masen's colleague, Walter Lucknor, believes that they are employed for
communication. It is revealed that removal of these sticks causes the
triffid to physically deteriorate. In The Night of the Triffids, the character
Gabriel Deeds speculates that the vibrations made by the triffid's sticks
serve as a form of echolocation. The upper part of a triffid consists of
a stem ending in a funnel-like formation containing a sticky substance which
traps insects, much like a pitcher plant. Also housed within the funnel is
a stinger which, when fully extended, can measure 10 feet in length. When
attacking, a triffid will lash the sting at its target, primarily aiming for its
prey's face or head, with considerable speed and force. Contact with bare skin
can kill a person instantly. Once its prey has been stung and killed, a
triffid will root itself beside the body and feed on it as it decomposes.
Triffids reproduce by inflating a dark green pod below the top of the funnel
until it bursts, releasing white seeds into the air.
Aquatic triffids appear in The Night of the Triffids; but remain largely unseen,
with the exceptions of their stingers: the latter described as prehensile.
= Intelligence= A recurring theme in The Day of the
Triffids is whether or not triffids are intelligent or merely acting on set
instincts. The character Walter Lucknor states that although triffids lack a
central nervous system, they nonetheless display what he considers intelligence:
And there's certainly intelligence there, of a kind. Have you noticed that
when they attack they always go for the unprotected parts? Almost always the
head—but sometimes the hands. And another thing: if you look at the
statistics of casualties, just take notice of the proportion that has been
stung across the eyes and blinded. It's remarkable—and significant.
Later, after the Great Blinding, the triffids herd blind people into cramped
spaces to kill more easily, or root themselves beside houses, waiting for
the occupants. Appearances
Triffids were illustrated on the front cover of the first edition of The Day of
the Triffids. The triffids made their first screen
appearance in Steve Sekely's 1962 film adaptation. The triffids are portrayed
as extraterrestrial lifeforms transported to Earth by comets. This is
directly contradictory of the literary source, in which Bill Masen states:
In the books there is quite a lot of loose speculation on the sudden
occurrence of the triffids. Most of it is nonsense. Certainly they were not
spontaneously generated, as many simple souls believed. Nor did most people
endorse the theory that they were a kind of sample visitation—harbingers of worse
to come if the world did not mend its ways and behave its troublesome self.
Nor did their seeds float to us through space as specimens of the horrid forms
life might assume upon other, less favoured worlds—at least I am satisfied
that they did not. This is later reinforced in The Night of
the Triffids, in which a young David Masen replies negatively to his
teacher's question as to whether or not triffids are extraterrestrial.
The 1962 film triffids also differ physically: the film triffids were
designed with flaying tentacles below their stems, which they use as slashing
weapons and to drag their dead prey. Also, their stinger is shown as a gas
propelled projectile, rather than a coiled tendril. Finally, the film
triffids are vulnerable to sea water. Triffids later appeared in the 1981 BBC
serial, in which they are portrayed accurately to the book. Designed by
Steve Drewett, the triffids were operated by a man crouched inside,
cooled by a fan installed in its neck; the 'clackers' were radio controlled.
The gnarled bole, based on the ginseng root, was made of latex with a covering
of sawdust and string while the neck was fibreglass and continued to the floor,
where it joined with the operator's seat. The plants were surmounted by a
flexible rubber head, coated with clear gunge. After the end of the production,
one was displayed for a time in the Natural History Museum in London, where
Drewett had once been employed. Some inferior copies of the props were later
used in a cocktail party sketch in an episode of Alexei Sayle's Stuff.
St. Merryn’s Hospital is alluded to and a triffid makes an appearance in one
panel of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, written by
Alan Moore and drawn by Kevin O'Neill. In the 2009 two-part TV series, the
triffids are portrayed as a naturally occurring species from Zaire, discovered
by the West and selectively bred as an alternative to fossil fuels to avert
global warming. Rather than walking on three blunt stumps, the triffids drag
themselves with prehensile roots which also constrict prey. Their stalk is
surrounded by large agave-like leaves, and they secrete their oil from their
surfaces. Their stingers, which in previous film adaptations could not
penetrate glass, are powerful enough to shatter windows, true to the original
triffids of the novel. Instead of a cup they have a pink flower-like head,
resembling a cross between a lily and a sweet pea, that enlarges before
releasing the sting. In the video game Final Fantasy XIII,
the player encounters enemies called triffids upon reaching Gran Pulse and,
not surprisingly, they look and act as hostile plants.
Other uses of the term Chromolaena odorata is known as a
"triffid" throughout the Durban area of South Africa. However, they pose no
threat to humans unless ingested, as they are carcinogenic.
See also The Day of the Triffids, the 1951 novel
by John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids the 1962 film
adaptation The Day of the Triffids, a BBC radio
dramatization The Day of the Triffids
The Night of the Triffids, a 2001 sequel to Wyndham's book by Simon Clark
The Day of the Triffids For Wyndham's explanation of the true
origin of the triffids, see David Ketterer, "John Wyndham's World War III
and His Abandoned *Fury of Creation* Trilogy" in *Future Wars: The
Anticipations and the Fears*, ed, David Seed, 103-29.
References Notes
External links The BBC's Triffid Home page
Reader's Guide to The Day of the Triffids