Not all cryptids are part of the animal kingdom; there are a few rare cryptids that are plants instead! All over the world, there are accounts of trees that bear human faces as fruits or among their branches.
The Wāḳwāḳ tree is one such tree and was supposedly visited by Alexander the Great himself (as pictured in the featured image).
This tree was known as the Indian Tree of the Sun and Moon and was regarded as a sacred deity that would speak oracles to those that visited.
The Wāḳwāḳ tree is sighted in The Book of Wonders of India (a compendium of tales from 900 – 953 AD) and even in The Book of Curiosities (a medieval Islamic manuscript).
In The Book of Curiosities, however, it is said that the Wāḳwāḳ bears more than human faces; supposedly it was a carnivorous tree and its fruit reflected the heads of its hapless victims!
Besides the great Oracle trees of old and the Wāḳwāḳ tree, there is also the Jinmenju: a tree of Chinese and Japanese folklore with human heads for fruit.
The flowering fruits would laugh and smile, but could not understand human language. Apparently, if they laughed too much, the fruits would fall and wither.
Jinmenju were supposedly around in the Edo period (between 1603 and 1868) according to its documentation, though they have not been seen in recent times.
While the legend of the Jinmenju originally comes from China, Japan supposedly adopted the myth and worshiped the strange tree as a kami (a sort of holy spirit of the Shinto religion).
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