Cover Plern

The cover plern has replaced its ancestor in the Flisch Temperate Forest. Here, the main competitor of the plern is the fernt which covers most of the land. The spiral plern of this area evolved a way round this. Instead of being aggressive like the fernt, they became sneaky. The cover plern starts growing the same way as its cousin does, with each branch growing towards sunlight. Once a shoot brakes the cover of the canopy, it will start growing along the top of the canopy. This branches are called the bridge stems. Small stumps appear on the top of these structures and leaves start to appear to gather sunlight. Another adaptation is that after a certain amount of growth, a new branch will start to grow out of bridge stems and grow towards the canopy floor. These are called supports. The bridge stem will halt growing until the support has reached the floor, where it will anchor itself with more branches the act like roots but only as support. The bridge stem stops growing so as to avoid damage to the support, if for example it were to hit the trunk of a bullying fernt. The bridge stem will then continue growing until it is time for the next support to start.

This evolution has changed how the temperate forest looks from above. It is now a huge field of green (the fernt) cut up by what appear to be hundreds of small canals in the canopy (plern). Plern can grow indefinitely until the end of their life and form large networks that slowly creep across their bullying relatives.