Tlukvaequabora

Replacing their ancestor the fuzzbora in all overlapping environments, the equabora is a true giant. Doubling in size, they tower over the surf. They form sprawling mangrove forests along the coasts of the major Barlowean landmasses. They play a vital role in the landscape of the coastal shorelines of Barlowe, as their deep roots provide a barrier against the eroding forces of the tidewaters and storm surges by trapping sediment with their roots.

Size
Reaching heights that dwarf all but the largest individual Terran trees, undisturbed equabora can reach sizees of upwards of 100 meters in height, with an average diameter reaching 10 meters at the base. Because of its size, the equabora has had to further develop their abilities to pull water to the top of their. Water from the roots can be pushed up only a few meters by osmotic pressure, but can reach the full height of the equabora by using large negative pressures in the equabora's water tubules and subpressure from evaporating water at the leaves. Equaboras supplement water from the sand with fog, taken up through aerial roots that grow near the base of their puff stem junction.

Salt adaptations
To protect themselves from excess salinity in the soil of the intertidal zones, they have developed a series of adaptions that both prevent the uptake of a significant amount of salt, and remove any that may end up in their vascular systems. These adaptations allow for the delineation of the two major life stages of the equabora, marked primarily by their major methods of dealing with salinity; the pre-reproductive “secretor” stage and the fully grown “non- secretor” stage. The first stage, secretor, is geared towards protecting the equabora while they are growing. Specialized glands within the equabora, called salinicoules, concentrate the salt in hypersaline solution and excrete it through pores within their leaves and along the surface of their bark. As the water evaporates, salt crystals often form on the surface of the equabora. This has the added benefit of making the growing equabora unpalatable to most herbivores, protecting the growing seedlings from predation until they reach sufficient size for reproduction. Once reaching maturity, they will have reach a size where pumping salinate water all the way towards their leaves become impractical. Once they have begun this stage, their energy focus will shift towards reproduction and bark reinforcement, entering the “non-secretor” stage. They will grow thick roots and hides reinforced with lignin and suberin, acting as a filter preventing the uptake of salts. This is not perfect barrier, preventing about 80% of sodium salts from being absorbed. While this stage is called non-secretor, it is a bit of a misnomer, as they still will secrete some salts from their bodies, but instead of coating the flora any salts that remain within are excreted into "sacrificial leaves", which are leaves nearing the end of their productivity that will be dropped into the surf. These adaptaions allow equaboras to grow in salinities up to 45 parts per thousand (ppt), though they grow optimally in salinities between 2 and 19 ppt.

Roots
Root Aeration The soil where mangroves are rooted poses a second challenge for plants as it is severely lacking in oxygen. Even though plants use photosynthesis to produce energy, they must then use that fuel through cellular respiration to power their cells and, like animals, consume oxygen. Most plants can easily take oxygen from gases trapped within the surrounding soil, but for mangrove roots this is not an option and they need an access to air. Not only are mangrove roots underground, they are also flooded with water up to two times a day. This unique environment allowed for the evolution of a variety of special structures that help the underground roots gain access to air, even when submerged by the tide.

Reproduction
Life by the ocean has its perks—for equabora, proximity to the waves and tides helps with reproduction.

Its fuzzy seeds have developed into airborne pollen which get caught in the fuzzy leaves of other equabora and this pollinate them. One pollinated they will grow fuzzy blue berries. These have seeds inside them and thus are meant for fauna to consume and distribute elsewhere. They are also buoyant so if they fall into the water they can wash up farther down the beach. Their pollination season is in the spring while their fruiting season is in the fall.

The watertight skin of previous species has given the fuzzbora's seed's skin the unintended beniefit of being elastic, so the berries bounce off the sides of the parent's trunk and the ground several times before coming to a rest. The seed within the berry will germinate within a few days if untouched, forming into a purple puff on the forest floor. The puff will grow in size, from a centimeter width to a diameter of a meter, for about 3 years. Then the puff will begin forming a grey-purple woody stem, reaching a hieght of one meter in a year. It will then continue to lengthen and thicken its stem over the next 10 years until it looks like its ancestor the fuzzpalm. After reaching 5 meters in hieght, new purple puffs sprout on the stem, which quickly grow with the whole flora to form "sibling puffs"; the first group of siblings is 2-3. After 10 more years of growth, all the puffs mature and begin producing and accepting pollen; puff stalks will enter the pollen phase for 3-4 months, after which they will resort to growing new berries from the pollen they themselves recieved during this time. This process will continue, with more sibling puffs sprouting from the puff stem junction, maturing, and producing pollen and berries, until the flora has grown 10-14 puff stalks; stalks can share the genetic material collected from any one sibling, ensuing a multitude of berries is in stock.

Range
The oldest mangroves are around the northern shores of the Solpimr and southern Ovi islands. In these old growth areas, they can grow up to a 1.5 km off shore, though there are many pockets of mangrove islets off in the coastal waters. These islets formed thanks to the relative shallow waters of the coastal areas, with various sandbars and reef pockets dotting along the seabed. These shoals are the remains of once higher elevated sections of Barlowe, though weathering has sunk much, it has left enough near the surface to allow equabora to establish themselves and stabilize the soil.

=Relationship with other species= The large scale spread of equabora to all tropical and temperate waters of Barlowe are thanks to three factors: the tamshrews, currents, and tropical storms.

As they are a descendant of the fuzzbora, they have facilitated the dispersal of all bora communal species.

In addition to these species, the introduction to the Penumbra island has allowed for the dispersal of tamhooks from their original habitat out into the water. With the Equabora being a vurtually identical plant and having little need to protect themselves after the flora have reached maturity, the tamhook has begun in the assistance in the spread of the equabora seeds, as the tamhooks will regularly feed on their fruit when they are in season, helping to spread the seeds. The tamhooks nimble body-form allows them to easily make their homes in the branches, though the occasionally high salt content on the surface of the branches can lead to irritation and sometimes dehydration as a result of grooming methods. They have not spread everywhere, but can be found in the coastal areas surrounding the Hydro Tropical Coast, spreading to the interior of the Putspooza Tropical Rainforest and some headway into the central eastern regions of the Barlowe Tropical Rainforest, though they have remained localized to that region and have not spread more throughout Barlowe.