Month: February 2020

A dangerous plant that characters should approach with caution.

This plant is encountered in arid regions and appears as a common cactus, with oversized spines – which average between 5 and 10 centimetres in length. It stands up to 5 metres tall and can grow to a diameter of 70 centimetres around the base. Although most plants encountered are a single spike from base to tip, some may produce branches. Its name is evident from its fruit, which look very much like pork sausages. The fruit is borne as white “sausages” which are speckled with red dots, which hang in bunches from nodes near the plants apex.

What makes this plant unusual is that it is classified a carnivorous plant. It is very long lived (up to 500 years) and is thus not as vulgar in its thirst for flesh. Instead it plays a very patient waiting game:

The stalk of the sausage fruit plant is but one tenth its total size. Underneath the soil a large shallow root system fans out in a circle, extending up to 10 metres from its base. These roots are sensitive to pressure, serving as a deadly kill zone. Anyone approaching the plant will stand on an area where pressure is exerted to the root system. This pressure is communicated to the stem of the plant.

Pressure excreted must be significant. Thus small animals like skinks and birds, which make meals of the tasty sausage fruit, do not trigger the plant. Only larger animals, weighing 20 or more kilograms will exert enough pressure on the roots.

The first step within the kill zone will arm the plant. Alerting it to the presence of a possible meal and allowing it to identify from which quadrant said meal is approaching. The next step acts as a trigger. Once the trigger is set off, the plant reacts with lightning speed. The spines which face the quadrant where the first, arming step was taken, shoot out at a high velocity.

Each spine is laden with a deadly, fast acting toxin. This toxin has a dual function. Its first action, once it enters its victim’s bloodstream, is to incapacitate its voluntary muscles, effectively paralysing the victim within seconds but leaving its heart and lungs functioning, to ensure the toxin is distributed throughout the entire body. The toxins second function is as a digestive. Within an hour of rendering its prey immobile, the toxin starts to dissolve tissue it comes into contact with. This whole process works on volumes. The greater the amount of toxin in the body, the quicker the time in which paralysis will occur and the quicker the prey will digest.

While the plants prey is digested from within, its root system will start producing specialised rootlets, which grow upwards towards the point where the prey lies. Within a day they will have pierced its tenderised skin. Within two days, they will have anchored the corpse and started to secrete even more powerful digestive acids than those of the spines, to dissolve muscle and bone. Within a week, the corpse will have collapsed in on itself, as its now liquid inside’s seep into the soil, to be hungrily absorbed by the plants underground root system.

This article was last updated VI August MMII

An interesting and deadly form of symbiosis.

The Tangle Vine, (also known as snag claw vine) is an arboreal plant that has formed a symbiotic relationship with a deadly fungus. Distantly related to the arboreal orchid family of plants, the vine still retains certain familiar characteristics. It grows in trees, hanging its roots from branches and produces a magnificent flower, the resulting seedpods of which bear a vanilla like aroma. The similarities end here however. It is thought that changing climate conditions forced the vine to adapt or die. Where once it may have thrived in a moist, jungle environment, it is now encountered in far harsher, dry climate climes.

The lack of nutrient laden jungle air is thought to have forced its adaptation. The air in arid climes is dry and bereft of any nutrients. To gain the nutrients necessary for its survival, the vine forged a mutualistic relationship with a deadly fungus, the Death Tendril. The fungus body resides inside hat of the vine, laying in wait for the vine to catch its prey.

Elongated roots covered in sharp hook thorns hand from the vines perch, waiting for an unsuspecting animal to brush against them. When this occurs, the hooks snag and easily pierce sin. Creatures snagged usually panic and try to break away. Although this is sometimes successful, it mostly casts them against other roots and soon they are well and truly stuck. While many thorns may break off, they are numerous enough to ensure that some remain embedded in skin.

The thorns contain a tiny opening just below their tip. Within this opening resides the Death Tendrils offensive weapon, an anaesthetic acid secreted in preparation for the trap to be tripped. Blood from the stricken creature carries the anaesthetic to its muscles where it swiftly goes to work. As the acid is secreted in every thorn, even ones that have broken off are still effective in paralysing the prey.

Once the prey has been sufficiently incapacitated, the fungus grows rapidly. The anaesthetic also acts as an anti coagulant, ensuring that the openings made by the thorns are not closed.

Thin fungal tendrils issue forth from the same holes where the anaesthetic was stored. They enter the prey and begin secreting digestive enzymes. As tissue is dissolved, it is absorbed by the tendrils, which then grow into the gap left, anchoring them further into the preys living flesh.

The tendrils are sensitive to the anaesthetic acid levels within the prey, any drop in which cause them to secrete more, maintaining the status of paralysis. Thus the prey is slowly digested alive until loss of blood and/or vital organs cause it to die. As the aesthetic is only local, incapacitating voluntary muscles, the prey is not even spared pain as it is slowly digested.

Being a fungus, the Death Tendril cannot use all of the nutrients it absorbs and excretes them from its main body, where they are absorbed by the vine, providing it with sustenance to sustain its growth. The Death Tendril is also interesting in that it can occur/live without the Tangle Vine. This is rare however as their mutualistic relationship is so beneficial, but when it occurs, the tendril can be spotted at night due to the phosphorescent glow emanating from it. This is due to the unused nutrients it has excreted being burned up by bacteria, a by-product of which is the luminescence.

The deadly twosome has one more trick up to play. In order to assure mutual propagation, the tendril releases its sticky spores into the vines seedpod ensuring a high likelihood of spores being carried with seeds when they are distributed. Anyone mistaking a Tangle vine seedpod for that of a vanilla orchid will be truly surprised to find the spore infested seeds somewhat disastrous to their digestive tract, causing searing abdominal pains accompanied by cold sweats and a general sense of delirium. While not poisonous as such, the effects of digesting the spores could be disastrous to anyone facing imminent battle or attempting some dangerous task.

This article was first published on XXXI July MMIII