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-like forests along the coasts of the major Barlowean landmasses.

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 adaptions allow equaboras to grow in salinities up to 45 parts per thousand (ppt), though they grow optimally in salinities between 2 and 19 ppt.

Root Aeration
A secondary issue for equabora is the lower oxygen content of the soil in which they grow. As with most members of their kingdom, they rely on oxygen to help facilitate photosynthesis. However the intertidal zones are regularly underwater twice a day, causing their roots to have a lowered exposure to atmospheric oxygen than their more land based relatives.

Pneumatophores, like these cone roots, help the tree gain access to oxygen even when the roots are partially submerged. (Pixabay) While most terrestrial plants use what’s called a “taproot” to burrow deep into the ground for support, several mangrove species rely on sprawling cable roots that stay within a few centimeters of the soil’s surface for stability and access to oxygen. In several genera, including Avicennia, Laguncularia, and Sonneratia, growing from these cable roots are pneumatophores, vertical roots that spring up from the ground. Some are thin and pencil-like while others are in the shape of a cone. Pneumatophores are specialized roots that act like snorkels when partially flooded and have pores called lenticels that cover their surface where oxygen exchange occurs. The lenticels contain substances that are hydrophobic, meaning they repel water, so when submerged, water cannot flood into the root. The pneumatophores of Sonneratia species can reach up to 10 feet (3 meters) in height, taller than a grown man. Most pneumatophores, however, grow between 8 and 20 inches (20 and 50 cm).

Knee roots are a type of horizontal root that periodically grow vertically and then, in a near hairpin loop, grow back down—similar to the look of a bent knee. The underground portion of the root adds stability while the looping projections increase access to the air. The knee roots of Bruguiera species can radiate out roughly 33 feet (10 meters) from the trunk.

Arching mangrove roots help keep trunks upright in soft sediments at water’s edge. Arching mangrove roots help keep trunks upright in soft sediments at water’s edge. (Chip Clark/Smithsonian Institution) In Central and South America, Rhizophora species are often the closest to the flooding tides and rely on branching prop roots, also known as stilt roots, for both stability and access to oxygen. A stilt root grows toward the soil, arcing away from the central trunk like a flying buttress. In mature Rhizophora, the trunk of the tree is completely suspended above the water by the arcing stilt roots. The root surface has hundreds of lenticel openings, like the pneumatophores in Avicennia and Laguncularia, and knee roots of other species.

Xylocarpus granatum roots have horizontal plank roots that lengthen vertically to increase the area above ground. The roots undulate away from the trunk in curving S shapes.

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

For most plants, the seeds remain dormant until after they are dispersed to a favorable environment. Not mangroves. Mangrove offspring begin to grow while still attached to their parent. This type of plant reproduction is called vivipary. After mangrove flowers are pollinated the plants produce seeds that immediately begin to germinate into seedlings. The little seedlings, called propagules, then fall off the tree, and can be swept away by the ocean current. Depending upon the species, propagules will float for a number of days before becoming waterlogged and sinking to the muddy bottom, where they lodge in the soil. Propagules of Rhizophora are able to grow over a year after they are released from their parent tree, while the white mangrove, Laguncularia racemosa, floats for up to 24 days, though it starts losing its ability to take root after eight. The flotation time allows for the propagules to vacate the area where their parent grows and avoid competition with an already established mangrove.

Range
The oldest mangroves are around the northern shores of the Solpimr and southern Ovi islands.

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

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