plants

Whenever I was told paper was made from trees, I thought it was made with the leaves and not the wood. I agreed with the whole Save Trees! philosophy, but I secretly thought "What's the big deal, if leaves grow back anyways?"
It was until I was like 12 I understood paper was made with wood.

Iñaki

I found a root sticking out of the ground one day and I thought it was a dinosaur bone. I would spend hours trying to dig it up everyday, while dreaming of how famous I would be.

Erica

Because plants grow so slowly that it doesn't look like they are growing, I used to think that plants only grew when people weren't looking.

Anon

This story is actually two of my mom's childhood beliefs. When she was about 6 her parents decided to give her her very own plant to take care of (still too young for her own pet). They said that adding a little sugar water to the pot would help it grow, and so she concluded that meant all seasonings would help it. For a little while she sprinkled sugar, salt, and pepper in her plant - which of course killed it. For many years afterward she was convinced that she could never have a plant again because it would "know" what happened to the last one and die as punishment. To this day, she really does still have a "black thumb" and is terrible with plants.

Kelsie

When I was little the family was driving in the country when my mother said "Look at the beautiful daffodils!". I looked out the window and saw a row of power line towers and for the next few years I believed that's what a daffodil was.

Bonnie

I used to believe my dad would plant light bulbs every year to make the plants grow. I didn't understand it was just bulbs.

Jenn

As small children, my cousin and I accidentally broke a hula-hoop, spilling tiny orange 'seeds' all over the yard. So, we dug a hole, planted the seeds, and watered them regularly, waiting for our hula-hoop tree to grow.

Stephanie

I used to believe there were little men and women living among the grass like leprechauns. Their job would be to collect as many four leaf clovers as they can to make it harder for humans to find them and steal their luck. I still take a long hard look before walking into a grassy area.. childhood habits die hard.

Chunaner

As a child there was a Muller corner advert on the UK television in which a pretty woman picked a yogurt pot from her own yogurt tree before she ate it. I'm unsure how I got the idea that this was fact, but on a few occasions my parents allowed me to bury my empty yogurt pots in our back garden due to my childish desire to grow my own yogurt tree... Biggest disappointment of my childhood

Sheen

as a child I was incredibly traumatised by tulips, possibly after watching the day of the triffids. My dad used to deliberately take me past beds of red tulips (they were the worst ones) whenever possible. The git.

Sean

When I was little my brother and sister convinced me that if you planted a sesame seed in the garden a plant would grow out of it, which would have a load of T.V's on it which showed "Sesame Street"...

Anon

I used to beleive that corn fields were called corn flakes so every time i saw the corn field i would call them corn flakes

Cass

I had a friend who knew a woman who had been a Hippy.She told him ( and he believed it) that during the sixties people put dirt in their ears and planted beans so they could grow "natural wreaths" around their heads.I couldn't believe he bought it!

Annonnymouse

I must have been home sick the day they taught this in school but in some amazing way I managed to miss the truth about raisins. I was well into my 20s before I found out that they are actually dried grapes. (I had been wondering for years why I never saw a raisin plant.)

Anon

When I was a kid I was told that umbrellas grew in the rain. When it rained they bloomed into big, fully grown umbrellas and the closed up ones had to get wet before they got bigger.

Anon

Until quite recently, I thought that christmas trees were obtained by workers climbing to the top of large evergreens and cutting off the tips. I always wondered where all the forests with the topless trees were. My boyfriend still teases me about it and points out every tree farm we pass.

Anon

I used to think that if I poured water on the grass compost heap in the back yard then covered it with more grass, 10 minutes later there would be cotton balls under the fresh grass. I recall doing this once and having it work - or maybe this was a dream.

Anon

My brother, after seeing a field of just planted tomato vines (nothing visible but rows of 20inch high wooden steaks) believed it was a farm that grew wood sticks.

Chris G.

I used to believe that the cattails (bullrushes) that grew around my grandma's house were liable to explode like land mines if I touched them. This was because my grandma would use them to decorate during the fall and to deter me from touching them she came up with a story about them exploding. I was too afraid to ever try to touch on to figure out for myself.

Timid toucher

My mum always told me not to put my nose too close to flowers to smell them because insects would crawl in and eventually make their way to my brain and never come out again.

Cathy