Shaggy Volleypom: Difference between revisions

Both structures are grown throughout the year, with megasporangium taking up to two years to fully mature. The scattered megaspores require either a stratification period of about 60 days minimum to break dormancy, or to remain in dormancy for two years without stratification before growing. The hardened shells meant to protect from falls perform a secondary function by preventing ease of consumption by fauna that may try to eat them, though persistence will still break them. They are commonly stashed away by creatures that horde food for storage.

The core components of most sporangium are fairly basic, the wall, the supportive tapetum, and the productive "mother cell layer" or materchyma with all three arising roughly at the same time upon differentiation of the parent cell clump of parachyma. The walls of both the microsporangium and megasporangium of the Volleypom are fairly conservative to black flora. These walls are several cells thick and heavily photosynthetic, they are very water permeable and guttation occurs freely across them when immature and growing, an inheritance from the tiny ancestral stalks in which these structures were their highest point. Vascular tissue, such as vascular fibers and phloem, directly pass into this layer separate from the inner developing parts. This layer can be distinctly peeled away from the other parts if care is taken. The role of the wall is essentially to act as a barrier, separating the developing inner tissue from the outside world.

As these individual parent cells drift away from the materchyma they begin to replicate, performing mitosis they cleave perpendicular to their path of motion, so one daughter cell is ahead of another. After this tapetum signaling induces meiotic cleavage, again perpendicular to their path of motion, first in the cell ahead and then in the one behind as it travels forward. These resultant germ cells travel ahead, single file while the tapetum feeds them and bulks them up. The tapetum surrounding the forwardmost germ cell begins to centralize a more distinct form around it, this form maintaining connection to those tapetum cells ahead and behind but separating from ones next to it. Nutrients passes into the structure from cells behind it, and through the structure to cells ahead of it.Among microspores, and most black flora, this structure continues moving forward and growing, eventually breaking free entirely and resting on the inner surface of the sporangium awaiting its release. Megaspores, on the other hand, stop moving at this point. The tapetum beneath them ceases its continual push forward, trapping the germ cells next in line from ever forming a spore. The megaspore remains attached to the tapetum underneath which feeds it. Tapetum next to it, unattached, continues to grow and fill the enlarging sporangium with cushy tissue, though it does not overtake the growth of the megaspore which would result in the spore structure becoming re-embedded. The materchyma continues to grow to no detriment to the rest of the tissues, though with no real contribution at this point.

The progression of xylem-esque tissue in black flora had been a fairly linear one. Beginning as individual freely growing open funnel-like tubes in the Bank Balgae. Transitioning to a more terrestrial life in the Orange Spore Sprout these tubes closed off and bundled together for durability and functionality, though the continual tube remained in the short statured flora which was a limiting characteristic. These tubes were cross joined by pores manned by a single central cell that formed a mesh of fibers to prevent cross contamination between tubes. Finally in the Orange Spore Stalk these hollow tubes pinched and formed staggered short cavities for passing water up the flora bodies, structurally convergent with the tracheid xylem structures of Earth, though created in the intercellular spaces of what were once hollow tubes rather than the cells themselves. The pores even developed a living version of a torus-margo system using their central mesh cell to prevent the spread of air, which would cause complete failure of the vascular system. In much of the descended lineages from that species this formation is conserved, most changes between upright species are cell wall composition rather than structure or arrangement regarding their vascular fibers.

How vascular tissue increases in number in a given part, such as a twig, branch, root, or even the trunk or stem, is via new infiltrating fibers. In Shaggy Volleypoms these fibers may begin their existence anywhere, but the majority arise in the lower trunk and base with their production stimulated by the increasing diameter and opportunity for expansion of the root system. Twigs and root tips extend with a lead vascular fiber powering behind them. Around this fiber parachyma will expand outward over time, and provide a medium for infiltrating fibers to grow into.

The parachyma experiences very slight disconnection between cells, allowing for extracellular spacing in which air may travel and gas exchange can occur, water in these spaces is generally soaked up by cells to keep them free from blockage and freighted toward vascular fibers for further use by the black flora. Other extracellular labyrinths, unconnected, do, however, allow water to traverse between cells. This allows cells to remain hydrated and is an artifact from various ancestors using guttation and evaporation through their stem and trunk surface to assist in the movement of water up their bodies.

The edge of the parachyma is ringed with a tissue reminiscent in function to a proto-cork cambium (PCC). At the boundary of the parachyma and proto-cork cambium the latter is broken apart by the growth of the former. Cells of PCC replicate here, always pushing outward from the parachyma. As observation travels further outward along the PCC the tissue becomes more uniform, vertically fibrous, and unbroken, with excepting to strips housing access to the inner air and water labyrinths. Further out still the access to the water labyrinths is severed, at this point the cells are tighter packed, and begin excretion of lignin and suberin into their extracellular matrix, or cell wall, making them more rigid and very waterproof. As these masses of cells are pushed out further by those behind them their layers fracture into macroscopic fibrous chunks that can measure up to 30cm in length. These chunks may curl slightly at their edges due to desiccation, though the cells inside at this point should all be dead and desiccated regardless. At this point it is the surface of the branch or trunk, and what remains is a flaky and fibrous, waterproof, layer that can be called a bark (though more specifically, periderm). This bark as it continues to be grown may end up several centimeters thick in older areas, and non-existent in new tissues where parachyma is directly exposed.