Dendroshrooms

The dendroshrooms split from their ancestor and grew in size, becoming some of the largest decomposers in the region. Their underground roots creep through the soil to find major sources of nutrition, finding their way into fallen trees and even into carcasses, releasing digestive enzymes to break it down into forms that can be absorbed, and funneling the nutrients back to the main body. Dendroshrooms can outpace crystal flora to new sources of food, due to cellulose being faster to grow than chitin, but that along with their non-colonial nature and hardy above-ground portions also makes them less ravenous, so the two types of decomposer easily coexist. Dendroshrooms usually grow in dips in the ground where water and detritus collects enough to feed a young dendroshroom. Their great size can be attributed to their use of cellulose and the aid of photosynthetic symbiotes especially early in life.

Dendroshroom reproduction has been optimized with a functional change between sporophyte and gametophyte. The sporophyte can now be called the female, while the gametophyte is the male. The achenes of dendroshrooms now have a pore on them, which the sperm cells are released from in the males so that they may enter the pore of the female achene. The female achene contains just a single egg cell, as well as significant amounts of a fleshy substance for an embryo to feed off of before it gains access to detritus. If the egg is fertilized, it will grow into a female; if not, it grows into a male. Submersion such as from rain is required for fertilization, but not for germination.

Juvenile dendroshrooms are partially autotrophic, as algae supplied by their mother--originally and occasionally still obtained by accidental infection of the female achene's pore--grows in their cap. This causes them to take on a particular color, including cyan, green, and gold. The sugars provided by the algae allow them to grow without a food source, and those with flashcell symbiotes may also flicker when disturbed, due to the symbiote's tendency to do so. The adults may partially lose this symbiosis once they reach full size and no longer need to fuel significant growth, but will retain algae cells in their cap, which females will then package with their achenes.

Though dendroshrooms are quite tall, they also have very narrow, flexible stalks for their size. This means that when large fauna bump into them, they wobble--and this shakes loose some achenes, causing them to shower down on the passer-by, clinging on to fibrous integument using tiny hooks. This aids them in spreading far and wide throughout their environment. Through this, though they originated in Wallace, they have also been able to spread to Koseman on the backs of flying fauna.

There are many species of dendroshrooms. The largest species generally live in woodland biomes where there is plenty of detritus to feed on. However, lone, tall dendroshrooms can also be found growing in nutrient-rich patches in any biome, even in deserts next to oases. Medium-sized species averaging 5 meters tall are more common in shrublands and wetlands. Some can also tolerate saltwater and reside on tiny islands in the mangals, mostly feeding on various kinds of dead mangrove trees. Smaller species are found in increasingly dry or harsh conditions where large size is unsustainable, until one reaches the alpine and polar regions where the odd dendroshroom surviving in a nutrient-rich spot will not exceed one meter in height.

Height is not the only variable characteristic in dendroshroom diversity, however. Another is the width of the cap, and yet another is the angle of the achene-bearing surface. These two characteristics are somewhat linked together, but there is some amount of variation. Narrow caps allow a dendroshroom a higher chance of growing unobstructed in woodland biomes, and reduces the weight at the top of especially tall species, thus also reducing the chance that the cap will snap off when it wobbles. In such species, the angle of the achene-bearing surface is sloped such that it would appear that achenes are growing on the stalk. This allows them to produce more achenes with a smaller cap. Especially short species also have a highly sloped achene-bearing surface regardless of cap width, allowing the achenes to be directly rubbed off onto the plumage or pelage of passing fauna. In some biomes where fauna might seek shelter regularly, whether from sun, snow, or storm, a wider cap frequently evolves to make an individual dendroshroom appealing to such creatures. This might also come hand in hand with a more concave achene-bearing surface, where some smaller fuzzy fauna like shrews and quails might pick up achenes by hiding inside the cap.

Finally, the color variation of dendroshrooms must be addressed. Dendroshrooms do not change color with their food source, unlike many other shrooms, as they gain no camouflage benefit and don't particularly need to camouflage anyway--their highly lignified structure without any soft parts makes them inedible to just about everything. Instead, their coloration serves functional purposes. The default color is pale greyish brown, like wood lacking in tannins. Species in especially cold biomes may be black so as to warm up enough from sunlight to perform some metabolic functions. In deserts, they may have a shiny white cap which reflects solar radiation, preventing them from cooking in the sun. On close inspection, additional color can be found in the creases and folds of the cap, where some symbiotes remain even in adults.