Crystal Swordgrass

The Crystal Swordgrass split from its ancestor. To avoid Muller’s Ratchet, it re-developed spores. Its spores lack cellulase and are spread underground from its roots through rain and snowmelt, much like the Crystal Peridot of another time and place. It forms colonial grass-like clusters. As a defense against predation, it is a fast grower, sacrificing some of its hardy crystal nature for outgrowing predation and competition. Its crystal leaves are not as soft as a terran mushroom, but they are still more bendy rather than stiff. This causes it to call back to the Crystal Rootgrass, to which it is only distantly related. Its root structure is entirely underground to protect it from herbivores, and it spreads far and wide to consume detritus and bud new individuals. Its long-distance budding capabilities allow it to quickly take advantage of clearings in the less open parts of its habitat.

The Crystal Swordgrass has developed a flattened rupee-like shape to its crystal leaves. This increases their surface area for photosynthesis in proportion to their volume and contributes to its ability to grow quickly. Though it faces competition for its niche from other flora, many of its competitors are purple and therefore use different colors for photosynthesis, so it easily coexists with them. The leaves consistently grow so that their flat surfaces face the rising and setting sun. Individual crystals do not last long, so as the sun’s position shifts with the seasons they too consistently shift their growth.

Being a mixotroph, the Crystal Swordgrass is able to thrive for extended periods of time without sunlight. This allows it to survive under snow and grow leaves the moment there is light available. Each leaf technically represents a single individual, with the mycelium connecting the leaves technically being a colony which shares nutrients. It is the dominant flora in many of the alpine habitats, and it can break up rock and contributes to soil formation.