Piperoot Colonystalk

Piperoot Colonystalks have replaced their ancestor in Fermi temperate beach. While all colonystalks share water and nutrients between members of the colony through their shared root system, the piperoot colonystalk takes this further than its relatives. The storage phytids produce specialized roots known as “piperoots”. These roots contain hollow tubules filled with water. These roots then link up with other storage phytids or desalination phytids. New phytids most often form by budding off these piperoots, giving them a source of water and nutrients while they develop.

A colonies life begins when an airborne spore lands and germinates into a synthetic phytid. Once it matures this founder phytid will then produce a storage phytid. The storage phytid in turn will grow the pieproots and begin budding off new phytids. Should a spore land within an existing colony, or near the edge of one its life cycle is somewhat different. Instead of the new grown synthetic phytid producing its own storage phytid the taproot will instead grow towards the nearest piperoot and eventually link with it. This is possible because, like the root caps of many earth plants, the tip of the root is sensitive to chemical cues in the soil. In a sense they “sniff out” the location of the nearest piperoot.

Established colonies will also link up to each other, forming massive mega-colonies. These can stretch as much as eight kilometers inland from the beach, well into the desert itself. This colonization of the desert is made possible by the cooperative nature of the mega-colonies and their effect as ecosystem engineers. Their root system stabilized the soil and the piperoots which extend out of the colony provided hospitable places for new phytids to grow. The water used by these desert dwelling members of the mega-colonies is mostly former sea water desalinated by coastal desalination phytids. Further inland colonies are small, rare, and centered around oases such as those stabilized by bonespires.

A colonies composition is determined by environmental factors. While all colonies have defensive phytids(1), synthetic phytids(2), spore phytids(3) and storage phytids(4) only those on the beach have desalination phytids(not pictured). This is because the formation of desalination phytids is triggered by groundwater salinity. In mega-colonies the edge facing the sea will have a higher density of desalination phytids because the desert dwelling portions make the colony as a whole “thirstier”.

Defense phytids are concentrated near the edge of the colony and are relatively short lived. As a colony expand the majority of defense phytids within central region will die off and be replaced by synthetic phytids. Significant and repeated damage to other phytids however can lead to the colony growing more defense phytids within its interior however. Rather than being permanently bent like those of their ancestor the defense phytids of the piperoot colonystalk are flexible. If they are touched, such as by a parasite or a passing herbivore they bend towards the stimulus and release a puff of their irritating defense powder.