Leafy Plyentwort

Leafy Plyentwort replaced its ancestor. It has re-developed the ability to eat with its mouth, allowing it to consume small fauna, and it can now also absorb very tiny microbes with its leg tufts. Each of its long wooden feet is springy, using the flexible nature of wood, allowing it to bound efficiently instead of just slowly ambling about. It has developed a system of cellulose fibers in its leaves which has allowed them to take on more complex leafy shapes, though they are still able to fold up and retract in the face of danger. The leaves have remarkable regenerative capability, allowing it to recover when grazed on by an herbivore.

The Leafy Plyentwort spends most of its time in rivers or in the submerged parts of the wetlands, stretching its leaves high above the water’s surface. When it comes time to release its spores, a male emerges from the river and puffs them into the air. Its spores are hardy, as they need to last long enough to find their way to a female. Spores can reach high into the troposphere, even to the stratosphere, contributing to aeroplankton. However, those that reach the stratosphere often die. They eventually land in a female’s waiting mouth, fertilizing her. Offspring contained in cellulose envelopes somewhere between an egg and a seed develop with a comparatively massive tuft on top, and she then puffs these into the air. They, too, contribute to aeroplankton, but do not reach the stratosphere. Its efficient aerial distribution has allowed it to spread to many rivers and wetland biomes which are not connected to one another.

The offspring of the Leafy Plyentwort are highly unusual—they have regained the ancestral eye! A hole in the seed-egg’s casing allows them to look out below, and when they see a river they hatch—causing them to drop to the ground, steering with wing-like flaps on their feet. They have decent aim, usually landing very close to the water if not directly in it. Their small size prevents them from being injured by the fall. Early in life they float at the surface of the water, but as they grow large enough to break through surface tension they move to shallow parts of the river and grip the mud with their long feet. They often group together with other Leafy Plyentworts of similar age so that they do not cast shade on one another.

Periodically, such as when there is too much competition, the Leafy Plyentwort will get up and migrate along the riparian biome. It does not reproduce during this time, so it uses its mouth to eat. Its saliva mimics the scent of carpozoan blood, attracting flying blood-eaters such as Xenowasps and Gushitos as well as scavengers such as Dartirs. They basically fly right into its mouth, and it proceeds to eat them. The blood scent mimic is produced using modified chlorophyll which uses iron, making it chemically identical to hemoglobin; eating binucleids and iron fauna therefore allows it to make even more. This gives it a significant increase in the amount of energy it has to use during migration, allowing it to amble faster as well as achieve a fairly quick bounding locomotion as needed. It has directional movement despite being blind as to increase the effectiveness of its springy feet; it moves in the direction of a single “front” leg, making it a tripod with one leg in front and two in the back.

Like its ancestor, the Leafy Plyentwort generally lives around the edges of rivers and kicks up debris to consume with its leg tufts. Thanks to the presence of an electrical nervous system, it can retract its leaves very quickly when disturbed. It has some tolerance to salinity, allowing it to live in brackish marshes and swamps.