Review by Frank Plowright

An alien intelligence arrives on Earth taking the form of a seed. The seed is recognised as unknown by an elderly gardener and presented to his daughter on her sixteenth birthday. Melanie may only be sixteen but she’s sexually adventurous, which is the point where much of the USA departs from Europe as in many US states the age of consent is eighteen.

As the plant grows, it becomes increasingly phallic, responds to Melanie’s touch and spurts out a scent. No, Silvio Cadelo isn’t taking his erotic fantasy very seriously, and as it continues he supplies a selection of sex scenes prompted by the plant’s presence, and often with the plant participating. It’s very adaptable in growing the necessary protruberences.

Unless plant/human sex numbers among your fetishes, the main attraction will be Cadelo’s imaginative art. Barely anything else from Cadelo’s long European career has been translated into English, and he’s some artist. He takes his lead from the plant in providing lush vegetation throughout, and draws attractive people occupying a timeless land where the cars and architecture of the past clash with the fashions of the future in detailed and attractive panels.

Time passes and a pattern emerges of each successive owner, all women, having to divest themselves of the plant as it’s become addictive. However, it leaves its memory. It’s also learning as owner follows owner, tailoring itself to their needs while maintaining a love for Melanie as its first human contact. Will they be reunited?

Right at the end it occurs to Cadelo that some readers may need an explanation for everything that’s happened, rather than just considering it fantasy, and what he tacks onto the final pages is as silly as anything that’s gone before, but supplying a completely different tone.

Any adult appreciating quality European art will admire Cadelo’s pages, and while the story just about holds up as erotic comedy, it’s not the attraction.