Vine Tentacles

"With another flick, a long vine shot out of the ground and coiled itself around the boy. Completing tying him up. The fear in his eyes transformed into pure shock and terror as he struggled within his bindings, looking at Isabela like she was the most frightening thing he'd ever seen. The vine was covered in flowers, of course."

— The Dragon and the Butterfly, "Chapter 2: Mirabel's Morning"

Vines are the tentacles of the Plant Kingdom.

Vine plants like morning glory or canary creeper tend to move outward, covering every surface as a means of collecting all the sunlight it can, and typically convey a more invasive side to plants. When you add a drop of Applied Phlebotinum to the idea, vines moving around like tendrils on a jellyfish can suddenly be off-putting.

If a character has plant powers, they apply vines in one of three ways: for swinging, for carrying stuff, or for grabbing. A Plant Person can use vines as makeshift lassos or grappling hooks. More monstrous plants like Alien Kudzu, Botanical Abominations or a Man-Eating Plant will use vines as a method of grabbing their prey when their roots keep them immobile and strangling them to death like a constrictor.

Unrelated to Know Your Vines.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Cardcaptor Sakura: The Wood is a Clow card that personifies plant life. Upon being activated, it usually manifests as a stream of vines that restrain Sakura's target.
• Digimon: Palmon is a small Plant type Digimon, it's Poison Ivy attack extend it's claws into long vines to grab or whip the enemy. Said vines are also laced in a strong toxin, which paralyzes whoever they hit.
• Don't Meddle with My Daughter!: A plant-based monster is unleashed by the villains, and it uses its vines to capture women so it can feed off their sexual pleasure.
• Doraemon have various gadgets that gives life to plants, controlling them into using their vines as limbs for grabbing and snatching at targets. In Doraemon: Nobita and the Animal Planet he notably uses a plant controller to bring a gigantic tree to life and using its thick vines and roots to restrain the Big Bad's tank.
• My Hero Academia: Shiozaki's Quirk, Vine, gives her vines in the place of hair that she can grow to massive lengths and control, allowing her to grab and restrain people along with forming barriers and many other uses.
• Pokémon: The Series: Most Grass-types can summon and control vine-like arms, sprouting and retracting them as needed to perform attacks or to manipulate objects. Notable Pokémon like Ash's Snivy and Bulbasaur do this regularly due to their lack of usable arms.
• The☆Ultraman has a Monster of the Week, Death Balan, who starts off as a Foul Flower but later assumes a plant/animal hybrid with extendable whip-like vines growing from its neck and front.

Audio Play

• Jan Tenner: The space plants from episode 11 of Classic as well as the sentient trees from episode 21 of Classic use their vines as whips and tentacles for combat.

Comic Books

• Batman: Poison Ivy uses vine tentacles as one of her signature powers, which she grows from nearby plants thanks to her Green Thumb. She can generally do whatever physical task she wants with them. She also has a habit of creating man eating plants with vine tentacles, as well.

Fan Works

• All For Luz:
  • Julia Wittebane's Quirk is called "Vines", which manifests as thorny vines from the base of her fingers, that she could control and extend at will. Luz takes away her Quirk at her friend's request during Summer Camp, for a chance for her parents to take her back home, seeing her powers as a curse.
  • After the Death Camp experience, Luz later gives the Quirk away to some kid who liked Spider-Man as it reminded her too much of Julia's Cruel and Unusual Death. She later takes it back from boy's corpse during the Battle of Gravesfield to fight the Golden Guard. After achieving "Quirk Awakening", the Vines can grow and shrink to whatever size, weight, girth, or appearance that Luz wishes. By stomping on the ground, Luz can have the vines spawn from underneath her. The Vines can grow to upwards of 5 miles and can grow to the size and thickness of tree trunks.
• The Dragon and the Butterfly: Like her canon counterpart, Isabela ties people up with vines as her primary method of defense.
• What if the Yeerks Were the Good Guys?: Tom wakes up one night to discover that all the non-controllers in the town have been ensnared in a giant alien plant's vines.

Films — Animation

• DC Animated Movie Universe: Swamp Thing is a supernatural being who controls plant life. One of the main applications of his power is the ability to transform his limbs into vines, which he uses to ensnare and impale his enemies.
• Encanto: Isabela's Green Thumb powers are usually applied in one of two ways: spontaneously generating flowers on every surface she can and controlling vines, using them either as a makeshift elevator or a means of snaring people, using them to drag Mirabel out of her room.

Films — Live-Action

• Batman & Robin: The only plant-manipulating ability Poison Ivy shows is when she uses the vines in her lair to snag Batman by his ankles.
• Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008): At one point, the characters are attacked by giant Venus flytraps that seize their prey using prehensile vines rather than simply waiting for it to come within reach.
• The Ruins: The monster is a type of flowery vine relegated to an old Mayan pyramid. Anyone unlucky enough to touch the plant becomes infected with its pollen, the plant growing inside of their bodies until it grows out of them. The vines are capable of whipping out and attacking its victims — invading their orifices and even fresh wounds — to obtain nourishment from them. The local inhabitants do everything they can to keep it from spreading — up to and including killing their own people if they're infected — and force any tourist unlucky enough to be there to stay in the pyramid until their death.
• Sky High (2005): During the climax of the movie, Layla uses her plant powers to control the plants outside the cafeteria window, summoning their vines like tentacles to bind up her attackers.
• The Super Inframan: The Starter Villain, the Plant Monster, introduces itself by summoning huge, powerful, serpentine vines that crash through various facilities in the Science Research Center, intending to interfere with the birth of Inframan. When severed, its vines can spew powerful acid. The monster's true form is hidden in a copse of trees nearby, and once the newly-revived Inframan defeats the Plant Monster, its gigantic vines disappear back to the ground.

Literature

• Downward to the Earth: The nicalanga vines of Belzagor are mobile and prehensile, and attempt to wind about and strangle prey animals.
• The Edge Chronicles: One of the Deepwoods' many native dangers is a Man-Eating Plant called a bloodoak. Bloodoaks don't have any means of physically capturing prey, being essentially just woody trunks with digestive sacs inside of them; instead, prey capture is handled by another plant that lives symbiotically with the tree, the tarryvine, which is a writhing snakelike thing that shoots out to grapple anything walking nearby and dump it into the tree's stomach to make a meal for both creatures.
• Galaxy of Fear: Vesuvagues are carnivorous trees that grab unfortunate passersby with their prehensile vines, wrap them up so they can't move, and then squeeze them to death.
• Harry Potter: Devil's Snare is a magical plant that strangles anyone unfortunate enough to get in it. They become docile when the person caught in it relaxes and can be hurt by bright lights because they thrive in the dark.
• How I Got My Shrunken Head: In order to escape from quicksand, Mark uses his shrunken head's magic to have nearby vines rescue him. The vines act like slithering snakes, and save Mark by wrapping around him, pulling him out, and curling quickly back into the tall weeds after they save him.
• Moongobble and Me: When Edward first meets Moongobble in book 1, Moongobble triggers a guard spell that causes the vines near his cottage to act like tentacles and grab Edward, holding him long enough for Moongobble to confirm he's friendly. Unfortunately, it doesn't work at night, which Urk complains about.
• The Riddling Reaver: There's an Attack of the Monster Appendage moment in the Allansian jungle area, where the players get attacked by a massive vine-like tendril. Following the vine and they find its owner, a Man-Eating Plant monster which is a giant plant in the forest floor.

Live-Action TV

• The Addams Family: Morticia's prize plant, a carnivorous African strangler named Cleopatra, often interacts with household guests via its highly mobile vines. Morticia insists she's just a very friendly plant offering hugs, but most people still find her unsettling. Not helped by the fact that at least one of Cleopatra's tendrils has a toothy mouth at its end with which she eats her favorite meaty treats.
• Ultra Series: Various plant-based monsters have vines that function like whips or tentacles.
  • Return of Ultraman: Leogon is a bipedal Planimal with two tubes protruding from its back, from which it can shoot long, tentacle-like vines for slapping and strangling opponents, using it to grab an MAT Fighter in mid-air and later dragging Ultraman Jack underwater when the fight reaches a lake.
  • Ultraman Taro: Basara has bloodsucking vines which it uses to throttle buildings, planes, and of course Taro in the final battle. Its vines are also electrified, capable of shocking the Ultra in battle.
  • Ultraman 80: Zora is an aloe vera kaiju resembling a pile of vines lumped into a humanoid shape, with spiky fern-shaped vines in place of arms for close-range attacks.
  • Ultraman Tiga: Gijera consists of thick, spiky vines in place of heads and limbs, which is strong enough to grab, restrain and lift Ultraman Tiga in mid-air so its flower-like core can attack the Ultra from up close.
  • Ultraman Dyna has the monster Jagira who seems closely related to Gijera, having similar attacks, including vine-like arms for whipping. However this monster can also summon vines from underground to grab Ultraman Dyna in the penultimate battle and pull a Metronomic Man Mashing on the Ultra.
  • Ultraman Mebius: Solitura is a giant living tree with wooden vine arms, handy for grappling Ultraman Mebius in the inevitable battle.
  • Ultraman X: Houlinga has tentacle-like wooden vines that spread far and wide from the mountain where she is rooted in. Being a Gentle Giant and one of the few non-hostile plant monsters in the franchise, Houlinga's vines are initially meant for delivering nutrients to the land, but when Houlinga goes on a rampage after being injected by poison, she ends up weaponizing her vines to grab and throttle Ultraman X.

Tabletop Games

• Vine Tentacles: Spring from Sequinox wields a vine-like whip in combat.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Assassin vines are mobile plants that strangle any creatures that wander close to where they're rooted, with the aim of having their victims' decomposing carcasses fertilize their growing spots.
  • 5th Edition offers the Thorn Whip cantrip for Artificers and Druids, which will snag a target within 30 feet, deal minor piercing damage and yank them 10 feet towards you. Druids in particular find use for it since many of their subclasses want enemies close and personal.
• Magic: The Gathering: Green spells are usually depicted as vines coiling around creatures or artifacts. Nissa Revane in particular is found of doing this in flavor, though mechnically she transforms lands into elementals (which is arguably a way of depicting this trope, as Green doesn't get damage or killing spells unless it against flying creatures).
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • The Venus mantraps of Catachan can physically grab onto creatures several feet away from them with their vines in order to drag them into their maws.
  • Dark Heresy: Ripper-whips, predatory tree-like animals native to Kenov III, are topped by a cluster of tentacle-like vines (or perhaps vine-like tentacles) lined with thorns, hooks, and suckers. When potential prey passes by, these burst into activity, grappling and dismembering the luckless victim and shoving its remains into the tree's thorn-toothed maw.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: The Lady of Vines has four long, tentacle-like vines growing from her back, which she uses as whips in combat.

Video Games

• City of Heroes:
  • The Plant Control ability Carrion Creepers causes huge vines to sprout from the ground and lash at enemies.
  • The summoned pet Fly Trap attacks with whip-like vines.
• Cuphead: Cagney Carnation can grow thorny vines through the soil when battling Cuphead or Mugman and stick them up to spike the brothers from below.
• Eat Me: Jenny Lettucehead is a salad-based Plant Person with vines that will lash out, keeping you at bay.
  Had she the inclination Jenny could squeeze you into a paste. Vines wrapped around your ankles, legs, coiling tighter till your torso's compressed and your head pops with a champagne cork's freedom. Hands, arms, animal limbs are clumsy logs next to her vegetable tendrils.
• Golden Force has a giant tree-demon (inexplicably named Tortilla) whose main attack is by summoning spiked vines into the screen to damage you.
• House of the Dead 3 has a level in a botanical research lab overgrown with plants, and every now and then the players will need to fend off whip-like vines coming out of holes in walls by shooting them. At the end of the level, it turns out these vines belonged to The Sun, a giant Foul Flower boss who had taken over a whole section of the lab.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Kalle Demos, the second boss, is a giant plant that attacks Link by lashing at him with its long, barbed vines.
• Let's Go Island has a giant plant boss growing in the temple ruins, who uses its various vines — ending in Man-Eating Plant heads — for attacking players. The only way to avoid taking damage is by shooting the heads on each vine, deflecting them if the player does enough damage in time.
• Lost Land Adventure have the giant plant core in the Antarctic, which attack players by lashing out with spiked vines.
• Mega Man Battle Network 3: White and Blue: One of PlantMan's attacks involves sprouting vines from under MegaMan's feet to constrict the hero. His associated Battle Chip does the same thing, trapping all opponents and dealing continuous damage as long as the vines are active.
• Metal Slug 7 and XX have Ceiling Ivies, Giant Mook versions of the usual Man-Eating Plant enemies which doesn't move about, instead clinging on ceilings and using spiked vines to grab hold of players into their flowery mouths. Fail to shake loose on time and the player character gets Swallowed Whole and lose a life.
• Monster Eye have the giant Rafflesia Foul Flower boss in the subway, who introduced itself by grabbing Jack and Betty by their heels, dangling them in mid-air before trying to devour them. After surviving the boss' initial attack, the player will have to attack the Rafflesia while fending off it's whip-like vines.
• Pokémon:
  • A common Grass-type Attack is "Vine Whip", where the Pokemon spontaneously produces a pair of green tentacles to either whip their opponent or grab things from far away.
  • There is also the Grass-Type move Power Whip, a more powerful but less accurate version of Vine Whip, where the user violently whirls its vines or tentacles to harshly lash the target.
• Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles: Alexia shares a symbiotic connection with plants that have been infected by the Veronica virus. This enables her to telepathically control the vines, which he uses to ensnare, strangle and impale her enemies.
• Tangle Slimes in Slime Rancher use vines to grab food from a distance.
• Space Channel 5: In the second report of Part 2, Ulala faces off against a mutated plant, which restrains the protagonist and lashes at her with its vines.
• Temtem has the Nature-type attack Frond Whip, which is depicted as a vine lashing the target.

Web Original

• SCP Foundation: SCP-299 is a tree with vine-like tendrils that are up to two meters long. It uses them to grab its prey and impale it on its sharp branches.

Web Comics

• Sleepless Domain: Gwen and Undine have an elemental Combination Attack called Fertile Soil, which allows them to control plants. In the first chapter, they use it to grow massive vines in order to restrain a monster, allowing Tessa to deal the finishing blow.
• Yokoka's Quest: Kalliv casts a spell to bind the king centipede with magic vines, allowing Mao a clear shot to cast the fireball which killed it.

Western Animation

• The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle has foreign spy Boris Badenov introduce the Pottsylvania Creeper into the American ecosystem. The Creeper is a Man-Eating Plant that can grow at an astonishing pace and nourishes itself by seizing victims in its tendrils and thence devouring them. When sufficiently grown, these tendrils form a rocket that launches into the stratosphere and explodes, dispersing thousands of creeper seeds.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: In "The Swamp", while the heroes are exploring the Foggy Swamp, they are attacked by what appears to be a gigantic plant monster, which entangles Sokka in its vines. However, the creature turns out to be just the product of a local waterbender using his power on the local flora.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • Batman learns firsthand to be more cautious when skulking into Pamela Isley's greenhouse in her debut episode as it features a massive, carnivorous flytrap with numerous vines growing from it, each one fast moving, python strong and ended in chomping fangs.
  • In "House and Garden", Isley's suburban home and little greenhouse are covered with mobile vines acting as her security system, which Batman learns when stealthily observing her civilian routine. When they snag Batman, she has them release him so that she can reassert her supposed innocence. Later in the episode, though, they act as sinisterly as you'd expect something grown by Poison Ivy to, restraining Batman, Robin and Dr. Carlyle so that the cactus monsters can kill them.
• Ben 10: Wildvine can stretch his limbs and fingers to great lengths, usually using them for swinging around or ensnaring his enemies.
• The Owl House: This is a very common form of magic used by Plant witches, which is often used for grabbing things from a distance, ensnaring opponents, anchoring objects in place, or slashing obstacles apart with razor sharp thorns. Luz also learns how to do this after obtaining the plant glyph near the end of season 1, and while she many not have the raw power or fine control of a natural witch (especially compared to her plant prodigy friend Willow), she still gets a lot of mileage out of it and it becomes her go to utility spell.
• Samurai Jack: In "The Four Seasons of Death", Jack is tangled in several thorny vines by the forest spirit, and she launches several more at him when he attacks her.

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