Crunchy Trufflegrass

Crunchy Trufflegrass replaced its ancestor. Its ancestor was unable to compete with the development of the Crystal Entourage Swordgrasses, the waterborne spores spread far more slowly than the new airborne spores. In order to be able to compete with these new grasses an alternative method of spreading had to arise. The subterranean fruiting bodies of the Crystal Swordgrass stopped relying on the water in the soil for spreading its spores and instead began relying on fauna. This method of spread turned out to be highly successful and resulted in a rapid diversification in species and with them colonial forms. Some colonies grow in long branching or unbranching lengths through the ground, while others form tight and squat clumps with little reach above surface. If these rhizomal colonies get broken apart by damage their redundancy allows easy recovery and survival of the majority of fragments.

Crumple and Reproduction

Fruiting bodies, or "crumples", exist entirely underground and typically just a little bit beneath the surface of the soil. They are available for any passing fauna to dig up and consume and give off a scent when mature. Some are hinted with citrus, others reek of cut grass (3-hexenal), but all have at least an underlying smell of propolis. The internal make-up of a crumple is mainly lightly crunchy, juicy, shell symbiont tissue and rich in simple sugars and starches. The outer layer of shell tissue, made of cells that are typically green in this lineage, lacks green pigmentation due to being underground. Streaking the inside are veins of red tissue, rich in proteins and flavonoids.

The crumple begins the same as the fruiting body of its ancestor, as a strand of red cells from the mycelioid body, tipped with a single green, or shell, cell cap. Distances and depths vary during formation of a fruiting body; often it simply occurs where space is available. The shell cell begins multiplying, sucking up nutrients funneled through the one cell wide strand, and begins engulfing the red cells behind it into its growing mass. During this point the hyphae may continue to push the growing tip further forward, and even branch out. Both shell cells and red cells inside proliferate away from the strand arrangment into a complex amalgamation and form many pockets of spore-filled chambers, resulting in the crumple becoming a compound fruiting body with spores of both symbionts in every bite. These pockets result in the object easily collapsing when bitten.

Once consumed the spores, coated in damage resistant layers, pass through the digestive system of the given herbivore without harm and are redistributed in its waste. Typically the herbivore will have consumed crumples from multiple genomically distinct colonies, and once rained upon the haploid spores will activate in the faunal waste and go through the typical complex process forming a spore modula, which had arisen all the way back in the ancestral Binucleus Crystal Shrub. Many of these spore modula will be washed out of the waste pile, able to grow in the peace of their newly found solitude. However those remaining in the bountiful and nutrient rich spot they landed on will compete for dominion as they enter their juvenile state and begin maturing. Typically one individual will arise and snuff out its cousins and siblings.

When an herbivore seeks out a crumple it will dig without regard for the Trufflegrass its treat came from. Oftentimes the disregard results in the mutilation of the colony as parts are ripped from it and the rhizomal body is broken up. Luckily due to the redundancy of the organism many of these pieces, scattered about and fractured, will be able to survive and grow their way back underground, assuming they do not desiccate in the heat of the day.

Mycelioid body and roots

The mycelioid body from which the crumples arise comprise, in most species, easily three quarters of the total biomass of a colony. This body part is a branching, spreading net of living strands only one cell across and function quite similarly to the hyphae of a Terran fungus. Pressure from liquid taken in by these strands is the dominant method of forcing nutrients and water upward through the bodies of these small crystals. This intake of water and digested compounds from outside occurs not at the growing tips of the hyphae, but rather at the mature portions just behind them. The pressure behind the growing tip provides the power necessary to punch through the many tough surfaces encountered in soil, despite normally lacking a tough capping cell like true roots. The digestive enzymes released into the environment are geared toward breaking down already dead or partially decomposed material near the surfaces of the mycelioid body, further making simple compounds available for uptake as opposed to passively relying on their release like many other flora. Living organisms are not typically targets or adversely affected by these enzymes to any significant degree.

Traveling up the organism from the mycelioid body the highly reduced, stout remains of the root can be found. These growths are nothing more than nubs of red tissue to provide an anchor point for the strands of cells that infiltrate the surrounding soils. The influence of the cell arrangment to allow for the strands developing out from the roots is so great that once mycelioid bodies begin developing from a matured root the root cells adjust to reflect a similar arrangment. This becomes reminiscent of bundles of fibers and allows a more seamless transition from single cell strands to the spongier interior of the core tissues while preventing a sudden drop in transport pressure. The tip of the root nub is capped by a small cluster of unpigmented shell cells inherited from predecessors that relied more heavily on these structures to explore the surrounding soils. These cells now act as a component source for the formation of fruiting bodies.

Core Tissue

The underground mass of red tissue the root nubs extend from acts as rhizomous core from which the other body parts and colonial budding occurs. Though the majority of the cells in this rhizome are of the red soft tissue there are unpigmented shell cells scattered throughout it. These cells allow for the formation of both subterranean roots and superterranean crystals.The origin of these scattered cells are the growth points of the rhizome, which are capped with a hard tip of shell tissue to allow freedom of growth through difficult soil. The tissue arrangement of the red cells is not particularly structured, though in some larger species the bundled fibrous growths originating from the mycelioid body and roots does echo through this area and may even extend toward the photosynthetic crystals. In most species, however, water and nutrients is freely circulated through this horizontal body core as needed. Turgor pressure and flow of water and nutrients inward is maintained by the lower body parts rather than by this core tissue.

Photosynthetic Crystals

The only body part of the organism that is visible to passersby aboveground are its crystals, which are comparatively soft like its ancestral form relative to other crystals. This lack of firm rigidity means that to maintain an erect stance it must rely on turgor pressure rather than solely on structural strength so commonly seen in crystals. This increases their water demand, while also allowing faster growth rates to compete with purple and black flora that may attempt to shade them out. The growth of these crystals is unique from many others in the fact that they now extend in growth from the bottom upward. They still expand in size with age, as is normal when looking at a crystal in sections (thinner sections being younger compared to wider sections), this placement of growth results in their widest section being the tip or tallest point on the crystal. It is common to see these old ends split and damaged from environmental stresses, age-related deterioration, or grazing from herbivores. The growing base of the crystal of a Trufflegrass is found at least a few centimeters under the surface, near the core tissue. This initial growth remains a constant width until being exposed to light, at which point widening occurs and pigmentation appears. This allows for a narrower focus of pushing force to break through the soil surface and any other barriers before performing its role in energy production.

The number of facets found on the crystal has shrunk to only two, two plates of green shell tissue continually pushed up from the ground and twisting to find and follow the sunlight as they widen. The layering found in these plates, from the outside in, is as such; photosynthetic layer, structural layer, metabolic layer. The photosynthetic layer, the outermost layer of the plate, is a dense palisade of heavily pigmented cells acting as the workhorses of the entire organism fixing carbon into simple compounds for every other part to utilize in construction and energy use. Behind them lies the structural layer: this layer in most crystals is strong and dense and provides the weight bearing structural support that holds up the entire organism. In Trufflegrass however this is no longer its role. It still provides a structure for the crystal to maintain shape but no longer is truly weight bearing, and so has become less pronounced in the mass of the plate. Finally the metabolic layer, closest to the center of the crystal, is where the plates interact with the red tissue symbiont directly for nutrient and water exchange. It is here at the junction surface of the two symbionts that gas exchange with the atmosphere for both occurs, with air traveling from this metabolic layer outward toward the structural and photosynthetic layers, dissolving into extracellular fluids and cytoplasm, and similarly inward to the spongy red tissue to dissolve. The seam along the ridge where the two plates press together is the entry point for gases into this section of the crystal, which protects these delicate and vulnerable parts of the crystal and prevents water loss.

Inside the crystal, between these two faces, exists mostly simple spongy red tissue. This red tissue fills with water provided from below to maintain turgor pressure and allows the crystal to remain upright, wilting during drought or heat stress. This tissue often has semi-impermeable layering which allows further control of water levels if pressure from the rest of the body disappears. In some larger species the cells of the spongy tissue is further elaborated on, echoing the bundled fibrous arrangment found in the lower body parts. This allows further prevention, and compartmentalization, of pressure loss when it occurs.

Tidbits

Those species found in more arid areas, such as deserts or scrublands, often spend drier periods dormant underground. They may remain there for years, rapidly putting up soft crystals when water or rain hits them. Some of these may quickly produce many small crumples for the season, or feed the water into a singular large crumple that grows every time it becomes active until eaten.

Having crystals growing from the bottom up allows for this body part to continually grow unfettered by grazing damage, or other environmental dangers aboveground, including quickly moving fires. Keeping the growing points underground also further insulates them from frost damage.

Most crumples measure about 2-5 cm in width, but some species will have very small fruiting bodies of only a few millimeters, often numbering in the hundreds or thousands, while other rare species will have crumples up to 30 cm in width, typically only growing one or two at a time.