Revision as of 11:21, 29 August 2011

Domesticated Plants

Food Plants

• Eanchainn - A whorled tangle of gray and reddish-brown strands shaped vaguely like a brain, the outer portion of this fungi is mildly poisonous, and is medicinally used as an emetic (substance to induce vomiting). It is in breaking the outer brain-like portion away that you find the 'nut' within, a very meaty-tasting dark brown fist-sized piece that is often dried and used to feed the hungry on Pyracan.
• Meacan - A purplish-brown root crop with broad, heart-shaped purplish-green leaves, its tuberous root often grows larger than a Pyracani's head. Used for Zik feed.
• Piorra - An intensely-flavored reddish teardrop-shaped fruit whose main use on Pyracan for centuries was to ferment it into a potent alcohol in which to preserve meat. In 2468 CE, a Hekayti calling herself 'Praell' began selling a subtle piorra wine to offworlders and made a large profit.
• Uachtaull - Also known as butter fruit, these short trees with dagger-shaped waxy leaves produce fist-sized spherical fruits with ochre, leathery skin and light yellow savory flesh with a creamy texture and a high fat content. Most popular as a stew-thickener or condiment when ripe, some avant-garde chefs use it when overripe to provide the sour-tangy taste of nearly-spoiled ham to dishes without fear of contamination.

Wild Plants

Fungi

• Slea - Wickedly pointed, dark brown and surprisingly hard, these foot-long fungi grow at the base of preas trees. While most of their nutrients are gained from their parasitic mychorrizae stealing from the preas roots, they also derive nutrients from anything that falls from the preas tree and impales itself on the slea. When it senses a victim, a slea quickly exudes an anti-clotting agent to keep the blood flowing to the ground, where its mychorrizae soak it up. Prehistoric Pyracani used it (and stores of the anti-clotting agent to douse the fungi in) for spearheads for thousands of years.

Herbivorous Plants

• Biorr – Around 20 species of bamboo-like plants that make up the upper canopy of temperate forests across Pyracan. Rising 20 to 120 feet in height, they feature thin, pole-like tan growth, short horizontal ladder-like branches, spear-like lime green leaves, and the ability to grow more than ten feet in a year. Extremely long taproots and a tendency to grow in dense thickets prevent the otherwise precarious plants from toppling.

Trees

• Grinneall - Also known as Siorc's Hairbrush and sea-nut, this scrubby fern tree uses a lattice of exposed roots to stay balanced in the waves and sand of equatorial shallows, looking somewhat similar to a mangrove. Its seeds are quarter-sized goldenrod berries that float through the surf by the millions, and are a favorite food of dathte, who migrate back to the island near which they were born in September and October to gorge on the berries and mate. The berries contain a hard nut within that passes through the dathte unharmed, often dozens of miles from its parent tree.

• Meudaich - Conifers with flat, hard dark green needles that can reach over two hundred feet in height, they are often used for their extremely resinous smell.

• Preas – With ribbed bark and trunks that extend more than eighty feet, these tree-ferns end in a tuft of bright green fronds around thirty feet in width. Preas make up the upper canopy of most jungles across the equator, with a variety of plants and animals digging within its bark and xylem to make their homes. Peach-colored spores gather yearly on the undersides of the fronds during the windy season to be blown skyward.

Vines

• Ealaidh - Stretching for hundreds of yards and growing roots wherever it touches the ground, this forest dweller tends to spread wherever it can find some sun, often choking out other vegetation as it covers an area. Each of its flowers is made up of five pearl-frosted green spade-shaped petals with a small central sphere that looks almost exactly like a pinkish-white pearl.
• Saighead - Featuring large white, wine glass-shaped flowers on a thick, parasitic vine that attaches itself to preas trees, they exist in tight harmony with puinsean, who both pollinate their flowers and poison the gallons of water that the cupped petals contain. In return, the puinsean gets water for flight and eats some of the bugs that the saighead’s water kills. In ages past, jungle Pyracani soaked their underwater fencing in the water from these poisoned pools so as to protect their unguli against predators.