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Who’s afraid of the big bad…flower?! Sure, we’ve seen the pitch-black Turkish rose that would harmonize perfectly with the home decor of any hardcore heavy metal fan…but we never thought that a flower could be downright terrifying! The following pictures posted by one Twitter user prove that Mother Nature has cooked up some pretty creepy recipes. You might even have nightmares after seeing what this certain kind of flower looks like after wilting. On the bright side, you can make a veritable Halloween bouquet!

Antirrhinum, more commonly known as snapdragons, are a variety of colorful flower originally native to the Mediterranean region. Their English nickname derives from the fact that if you squeeze the sides of the blossom, it resembles the jaw of a dragon opening and closing.

It’s funny how one culture can see different images in the same thing. In Japan, snapdragons are called kingyosou (金魚草, literally meaning “goldfish grass”) because it is said that the shape of the flowers looks like goldfish. Kingyosou are particularly famous in the goldfish-abundant area of Yatomi City, Aichi Prefecture, where they have even been appointed the city flower.

▼Goldfish grass?

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Snapdragons have a higher tolerance for cool weather than other flowers, making them an excellent choice to add a splash of color to your garden in either early spring or autumn. They also come in a diverse range of colors, including different petal gradations, such as in the flower pictured below.

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Sounds like an overall winner for a beautiful flower contest, no? Just be sure to enter your bouquet before the flowers wilt, or else you’ll be in for a nasty surprise, as the following Japanese Twitter user was shocked to learn:

▼“This is what snapdragons look like after they’ve wilted! They’re so scary I won’t be able to sleep tonight”

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As you can see, when snapdragon blossoms wilt, their colors fade and the petals curl up into shapes that resemble skulls a little too closely! The similarities are unbelievable.

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Here are some of the online reactions after seeing the withered, skull-like flowers:

“GAAAAAHHH!!” (ﾟﾛﾟﾉ)ﾉ

“Huh? Huh? What’s this? It’s too scary!”

“My friends won’t be able to sleep after I show them these pictures” (*evil smile*)

“If I don’t do something about these flowers before they wilt, it’s gonna look like a scene from hell…”

“I wasn’t scared at all! OK, what’s next?! Huh?? My computer crashed…?!”

“Wow, nature is amazing!”

“I want to gather up a bunch of them and trample them!”

OK, so maybe some of them are exaggerating a bit. But you’ve got to admit, the resemblance of the flowers to skulls is a very cool coincidence. At least now we don’t have to worry about finding accessories for our Halloween costumes this year!

Source/Images: My Game News Flash