Hello everyone!

I have a specific kind of Botanophobia (fear of plants). What I'm afraid of is not plants in general (though I don't really like them) or all kinds of plants, but the leaves of some plant species, those that look "creepy" to me. What is "creepy" seems a pretty random thing, I look at a plant, and it's either "nothing special" or "get it away from me!". I think I can narrow it down to plants with lobed, hand-like leaves (ohh, I'm shivering a little as I write this), plants with very big leaves, especially those that grow in a crawling habit, and plants with small, but very ruffly leaves.

For example: Fig (the scariest leaf in the world for me), pumpkin (huge leaf and crawling plant), watermelon (even worse than pumpkin because crawling plant, and huge LOBED leaf), Chrysanthemeum ( little ruffly, leaf sorry can't check if I wrote it correctly for fear if I google it a leafy picture of the plant may appear), oak (lobed) and gooseberry (little, ruffly leaf).

I don't have a problem with other parts of these plants. (e.g. flower, branches etc.) In the winter, when their leaves are gone, I'm not afraid of them.

Whenever I see a leaf like this, what I feel is not really fear (e.g. what you feel when a stray dog starts chasing you or someone attacks you) but more like dread. My pulse starts racing I grow cold, and I need to get out of the vicinity of the plant.

It doesn't matter if the plant leaf I see is in real life or only a picture, it has the same effect on me.

I like biology, and reading articles on animals and plants on wikipedia and other sites, but if I choose to research plants, I need to disable loading pictures in my browser before, for fear if a "scary leaf" picture will appear.


I have some ideas on how this phobia might have started:

When I was 3 years old, my aunt bought me an old Soviet toy train set called "Friendship Railroad" for Christmas on the flea market. The box of it featured drawings similar in style to Soviet cartoons like Nu Pogodi and Cheburashka of animals riding the small train in a forest. The "forest" was basically a hodgepodge jungle of various plants that were around them. One plant on the drawing was some kind of very strange shrub. Imagine opened, flattened cabbage leaves, out of which a hairy banana grew in the middle. Whatever plant it was, it creeped the hell out of me, and I became afraid of the entire box. Thankfully, the acid of the batteries in it leaked into the electric motor of the locomotive after a few weeks, so the train wouldn't work anymore. After this, it was put out of sight a little, on the top of a wardrobe. My bed was pushed up against this wardrobe, and I never dared to venture to the part of the bed that was further away from the wardrobe, because then, the box on the top would get in my line of sight.
My mom could see that I had some issues with that box, so it was moved to my grandma's house.

About a year after all this happened, we were visiting a relative. They had some old building near their house. And a small path led to it, on both sides of it, Chrysanthemeums were planted. (Ooohhh....). I started walking towards this old building, while looking sideways, at the chrysanthemeums. Suddenly, the chrysanthemeums got bigger near the building, they were probably older. The sight of suddenly seeing a bigger plant, was like one jumped at me or something. I quickly froze and ran back, away from there. (I have goosebumps all over me and I'm sweating a little as I write this)

Since this incident happened, I had this plant-leaf-phobia. I'm 21 now.

When I was 7, we took a trip to the Mediterranean. That's where I saw a fig tree for the first time in my life. Terror at first sight lol.

As for the Soviet toy train box, when I was 6 or 7, I suddenly saw it on the top of a closet in my grandma's house in the spare bedroom. I started crying immediately, and my mom had to take me out of the room.

About 2 years later I somehow encountered it again, but this time I just got startled and ran out the room.

When I was 12, I was at my grandma's and my cousin was there. He is 3 years younger than me. He found the box, under a bed and pulled it out immediately. He didn't know what this was. I started shivering, sweating and stuttering and said "It's.. a t-toy train..." he said "Cool, let's put the track together, come help me!"
I didn't want him to know how afraid I was of that thing, so I started putting together some track elements, but my hands where shaking so hard, it was very hard to do.

When I was 18, I suddenly found myself not really afraid of that box anymore. When we went to my grandma's the next time, I boldly pulled it out from under the bed, looked at it and... no fear. Nothing. Gone.


But the plant-leaf fear remains...

Welcome to the forum

Thanks for sharing that information with us and i was delighted to see that you lost your fear of the train.

Wouldnt it be great if all phobias would dissapear over time?