can plants grow in the human body?

There was a recent story where a plant grew inside a man's lungs...

"Artyom Sidorkin, 28, visited doctors in the central city of Izhevsk complaining of intense chest pain and said he had been coughing up blood.

After consulting X-rays, doctors were "100 percent sure" Mr Sidorkin had a tumour and decided on surgery to remove the cancer. But when they opened him up, surgeons instead found a small fir tree growing inside his lung.

"I thought I was hallucinating," said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev.

"I asked my assistant to have a look: 'Come and see this — we've got a fir tree here'. He nodded in shock. I blinked three times as I was sure I was seeing things." Dr Kamashev said he believed Mr Sidorkin must have inhaled a fir seed, which sprouted inside his lung and began growing into a tree."

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/801576/fir-tree-s...

Despite what others are saying, some species of plants actually can.

The hazy answer and example would be coral (while coral is technically an animal, it is also considered to be a plant). This is why scraping or cutting yourself on coral is dangerous. Out blood provides all of the vitamins and nutrients needed for coral to grow unaided by other means. Meaning that it can literally grow in your veins. Luckily for us this is extremely painful and you usually know that you have some coral in you. It can easily be removed at a hospital (under a knife usually).

As far as swallowing something that can grow in you, that would not happen, even with coral. The acid bath that is your stomach kills off the overwhelming majority of living organisms that you might ingest.

So the answer is kind of. I'm sure that there are other species of plants out there that have the potential. Anything that you eat or are regularly exposed to will not. As was stated, photosynthesis is the driving factor for plant life. without it, the plants die off. However some plants can function without light. Unless you live in some kind of unusual cave carrying rare species, you have nothing to worry about.

It's rare, but it can happen.

There was a recent incident where surgeons found a fir tree growing in a man's lung. It was all over the news.

Yes actually, but only certain kinds and only for short periods of time, as seen with this case of a man that had a branch from a pine tree removed from his lungs after recieving x-rays...

I had a huge growth on my neck right behind my ear as a toddler. When it was removed the doctor told my family it was a "plant substance" inside of the huge bubble behind my ear.

I don't think so because there is no light to grow the plants inside your body..or soil and nutrients.=)

Yes, I have a cactus growing inside of my stomach as we speak.

Apparently so, really freaky. my mum used to tell me not to eat fruit seeds for the saem reason, load of rubbish though lol

nope, plants require sunlight for photosynthesis, and there is no sun in the human body.

yes, in the anus it is a warm and moist environment perfect for growing many types of foliage such as a feicus