Myth-Understanding: The Spider-In-The-Cactus Story Lives On . . . And On

From England to the Midwest to Germany and now Lynnwood, the legend of the tarantula in the cactus lives.

You haven't heard that one? The basic plot starts with a big, hairy arachnid that buries its eggs inside a cactus-type plant. An unwitting customer takes the plant home, and one day it starts quivering or squeaking, then explodes. In some versions, the people get out of the house just in time. In others, they watch as the plant blows up and hundreds of tarantulas fly out.

No one ever gets hurt - just scared.

In the past few weeks, dozens of callers have phoned nurseries in Lynnwood and Woodinville, asking whether those stores actually sold a cactus that exploded when tarantula eggs inside it hatched.

The story's absurd, of course. No tarantulas or spiders of any type ever have been known to burrow into plants, says Rod Crawford, curator of arachnids at the Burke Museum.

Even if a small spider happened to climb into a hole in a cactus and lay eggs there, he says, the plant wouldn't explode when the eggs hatched.

But the facts just can't kill a good story.

Several people have called Molbak's Greenhouse and Nursery in Woodinville to ask if the offending cactus came from that store. In the version recounted to Molbak's employees, the cactus squeaked when watered and baby tarantulas came out of the soil.

Wight's Garden and Floral in Lynnwood has received up to four calls a day over the past six weeks, says general manager Karen Block. In the version she has heard, the cactus exploded.

"It's always a friend of a friend who bought the cactus," Block said. The story, she added, "will run its course."

So far, however, the story has run a rather long course. It has been around the world and probably will resurface somewhere else after it's exhausted here.

Jan Harold Brunvand, a University of Utah English professor who has published several collections of urban legends, says he first heard the tarantula-in-the-cactus story in 1985 when a British newspaper ran a story to calm a scare about cacti purchased from the Marks & Spencer department store.

Brunvand later heard versions of the same story attributed to a nursery chain in the Midwest, to people who dug up cacti in California and the Southwest. And he has a collection of German urban legends published a few years ago titled, "The Spider and the Yucca."

Brunvand says he rarely finds the origin of such legends and doesn't know why this particular one has cropped up here.

"Most of the time," he said, "I've abandoned that search because the stories have a life of their own."

Brunvand says he hadn't heard the tarantula-in-the-cactus story for a few years, but notes it's common for legends to lay dormant for a while. And while talking to a reporter on the phone, he opens a letter from a Seattle woman who tells the same story but says the cactus was purchased from Sky Nursery in Seattle.

Sky Nursery employees say they haven't received any queries about whether they were the ones who sold the cactus.

But Wight's and Molbak's haven't had such luck.

Block says she's considered having a little fun by posting a "tarantula crossing" sign in Wight's store. Or putting a tarantula in a cage with a sign saying "captured."

Then again, Block wonders whether she'd better publish a serious bulletin to put the rumor to rest.

Or at least squash its momentum.