Red Leaf Barberry (Berberis thunbergii)

¹ Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

² There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.

³ So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” 

Exodus 3:1-3

Brown Recluse (Loxosceles reclusa)

"I don't believe in a future life," said Raskolnikov.

Svidriga?lov sat lost in thought.

"And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort," he said suddenly.

"He is a madman," thought Raskolnikov.

"We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it's one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is? I sometimes fancy it like that."

"Can it be you can imagine nothing juster and more comforting than that?" Raskolnikov cried, with a feeling of anguish.

"Juster? And how can we tell, perhaps that is just, and do you know it's what I would certainly have made it," answered Svidriga?lov, with a vague smile.

Fyodor Dostoevsky's 
Crime and Punishment

Black Widow (Latrodectus hesperus)

Shelob's Lair

Across the width and height of the tunnel a vast web was spun, 

orderly as the web of some huge spider, but denser-woven and far greater, 

and each thread was thick as rope.

    Sam laughed grimly. 'Cobwebs!' he said. 'Is that all? Cobwebs! 

But what a spider! have at 'em! Down with 'em!'

    In a fury he hewed at them with his sword, but the thread that he struck did not break.

It gave a little and then sprang back like a plucked bowstring,

turning the blade and tossing up both sword and arm.

--The Two Towers by J.R. Tolkien