Red weed
From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project
The red weed (also referred to as the red creeper) is a fictional plant native to Mars in the novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. It is this plant that supposedly gives Mars its dull red colour. It is brought to Earth possibly accidentally by the invading Martians. When it is exposed to water, it grows and reproduces explosively, flooding the neighboring countryside as it clogs streams and rivers.
Though it engulfed the native plant life of Earth it succumbed to the effects of Earth bacteria.
As the book has been interpreted as criticism of British Imperialism, the Red Weed can be seen as a metaphor. In a real-life parallel, the British and other European colonisers, introduced various non-native fauna to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, etc. In some cases, these introduced species overwhelmed the native fauna, especially in remote islands. Another possible interpretation is that the Red Weed is a metaphor for bloodshed. Lastly, and most obviously, the Red Weed's invasion mimics the destructive invasion of the Martians themselves.
In other adaptations
The red weed is not mentioned at all in the radio adaptation, and is absent from the 1953 film; however its absence fits in with the retcon established for the TV series follow-up in which the aliens originate from Mor-Tax, a garden planet. Therefore, their means of transforming the planet was actually to conserve and promote Earth's own vegetation.
In Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, the red weed's colour does not derive from the look of the invaders' planet, which isn't stated, but rather from the blood the aliens drain from humans as perhaps a means of "fertilizing" the substance so as to cover the planet. Here, the red weed's presence on Earth is quite evident to be intentional, though because there are no details pertaining to the aliens' world, its exact purpose in relation to their environment is unknown. Much like in the novel, the red weed dies along with the invaders. In fact, both the aliens and the red weed appear to dehydrate upon their death, indicating that some extraterrestrial substance was mixed with the blood, most likely to give it its ability to spread over the land.
The red weed is also present in the film H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which is a direct adaptation of the novel. However, it is not featured in any detail, and its presence is nothing more than as a part of the background.
It's also present in the PC Game of the War of the Worlds, where it simply replaces the trees if more Martian buldings and defences are built in that sector.
In the second volume of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which deals with the effects of the Martian invasion within a wider fictional context, the red weed is deliberately employed by the Martians as an anti-shipping weapon, in order to prevent Captain Nemo's submarine, the Nautilus, from providing effective resistence to the Martian invasion.
Copyright
"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 10, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."
