Confirmed. No plants there, so no way to satisfy the quest's completion requirements. And yes, the plants were once 3D "man traps". They swayed and animated a bit and were very impressive to see. We once had 3D frogs in the game too, and maybe a few other 3D critters, but these were all removed at some point due to them apparently causing some problems. However, i believe the man traps in this basement were overlooked so remained in this quest for a while longer. Then, (prior to last season?) i forget now when exactly, even these man traps were removed and replaced with standard spore plants. This quest was working after that, so i'm not sure what happened or when it happened, but clearly they are missing now.
Also, i'm impressed to see any PvP/PK apes doing PvE quests. Seeing that is worth more to me than missing spore plants, so yay!