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Located in the Russian Far East, the island of Sakhalin is allegedly
home to giant versions of common plants like buckwheat, burdock and
butterbur that can grow up to 5 meters tall.
Sakhalin is known for being the largest island in the Russian
Federation, as well as a point of contention between Japan and Russia
over the centuries. However, according to obscure reports going back
over a decade, the northernmost island of the Japanese archipelago, as
well as the nearby Kuril Islands are home to versions of ordinary
herbaceous plants of truly gigantic proportions. Plants that normally
reach the knee of an average adult, on these islands allegedly grow
several times the height of a human.
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According to a 2009 report in Russian newspaper Izvestia, Russian
scientists had long been studying the giant plants that grew in certain
regions of Sakhalin Island. Buckwheat plants up to 3 meters tall,
burdock leaves that reached 5 meters sound like something out of Jack
and the Beanstock, but the photos of giant plants doing the rounds on
social media suggest that there is some truth to these claims.
Researchers from the Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics and from
the Russian Academy of Sciences reportedly carried out studies of
unusually large herbaceous plants in 12 different areas in the south of
Sakhalin and Kunashir islands, and found that the gigantic plants only
grew in certain areas of the islands, and seemed to be influenced by
frequent tectonic activity that give off significant heat, among other
factors.
Apparently, the impressive size of the grass has little to do with the
plants themselves, and more with the environment. When taken out of the
environment and planted elsewhere, they only grew to their ordinary
size. The gigantic plants grow on gley, waterlogged soil located above
the faults of the Earth’s crust, through which a large amount of heat
and petroleum hydrocarbons are supplied to the roots of plants.
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A higher concentration of copper and chromium compounds was also
identified as a potential factor of extraordinary growth.
Photos of these gigantic plants – including buckwheat, burdock and
butterbur – that allegedly grow on Sakhalin and several of the Kuril
islands recently went viral on Russian social media. The public feedback
has been mixed, with some who claim to have grown up in the Far East
confirming the height of the plants, and others dismissing the claims as
mere stories.
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