Susannasapper's Tangle
| Susannasapper's Tangle | ||
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| (Campanacuscuta ssp.) | ||
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| Information | ||
| Creator | Colddigger Other | |
| Week/Generation | 27/167 | |
| Habitat | Wallace, Kosemen | |
| Size | Vine Segment (50 Cm - 4 M Long), Full Body (Multiple Hosts Wide) | |
| Primary Mobility | Sessile | |
| Support | Unknown | |
| Diet | Photosynthesis, Parasitism (Black Flora Trees) | |
| Respiration | Unknown | |
| Thermoregulation | Ectotherm | |
| Reproduction | Sexual, Hydrogen Filled Seed Bubbles | |
| Taxonomy | ||
| Domain Kingdom Subkingdom Division Class Order Family Genus Species | Eukaryota Phoenoplastida Phoenophyta (info) Physallophyta (info) Physallothallopsida Maineibullales Donecaudamaceae Campanacuscuta Campanacuscuta ssp. | |
| Ancestor: | Descendants: |
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The susannasapper's tangle group split from its ancestor, the madamedusa vine to take further advantage of their host flora. Taking advantage of its new niche it rapidly diversified and spread across Wallace, because of its floating seeds it quite easily was able to colonize into Kosemen and speciate there as well. The tangle specializes in growing on larger black flora, with preference toward the dense canopies of mature obsidoak or snowflake obsidioak forests. They are capable of taking advantage of other melanophyte trees that form forests and woods, and certainly do so, but spreading vegetatively is far more difficult in comparatively open canopies, for example those of volleypoms or gargantuan obsiditree despite their greater heights. In such situations a vine may spend its entire life in a single tree. In both situations a thoroughly mature tangle of these vines can severely weaken, stunt, and even kill their host either directly or indirectly. Susannasapper tangle rapidly diversified due to a lack of competition for the niche of vining epiphytic parasites. Both species highly specialized for certain trees as well as adaptable generalists can be found in the group.
Initial Growth
Similar to their ancestor the susannasapper's tangle begins life as a zygote amidst many others in the membrane of a bubble seed floating over their forest home. This seed slowly settles down to the canopy as it loses hydrogen and in time becomes ensnared upon one of the upper branches via a long wiry strand hanging from the base. This part of their life diverges from their ancestor, most often the bubble seed settles into arboreal soils on top of large branches. It is in these soils that the seedlings gain their footing and first roots reach into for water and nutrients.
Parasitism
Their initial cord of tissue that develops reachs about one meter in length before forming a float on the end. Their root system is shallow, much of their energy is directed toward growing tall and forming their first holdfasts. These, like their ancestor, grow from the float that divides their tether segments. Once the holdfasts are formed and find their way to the branches of their host what had once been gentler twining threads in their ancestor are now invasive haustorium. Creeping across the surface of the branch these tendrils will stop on young new growth. The haustorium push through the surface of their host at these points into the large vascular fibers to directly access water and nutrients from them. They do not tap into phloem, as these are much smaller, finer, structures and the haustorium are not designed for it. If the developing organism had landed on a tree belonging to the purple flora group it would at this point perish, as the xylem structures of purple flora are often too individually narrow and different in form for their haustorium to take advantage of adequately.
The haustorium clog the vascular fibers and redirect the flow of water and nutrients into themselves, supplanting the roots of their young susannasnapper's tangle. The roots shortly after this wither away to leave a vestige of the initial cord. Off of their first true node new cords spread. Some species tend toward single long strings of nodes, while others rapidly form webs as multiple cords offshoot from their growth points.
Floats
Alongside these cords, from the node grows a single float tether, this trait is retained in all species. The floats are structurally simpler compared to the ones of their ancestor. The inflated leaves and the floatation bubbles have fused into a round bell. This bell has a thicker outer wall for photosynthesis, while the wall inside the bell remains thin for less weight. The internal chamber of the bell is somewhat partitioned down its length. This allows sections to quickly be cut off from the rest of the structure if damage were to occur.
The tether leads directly up the center of the float bell, attaching inside at the top. From it vascular tissue passes immediately through the top of the bell to the next part of the float, the bubble seeds. These bubbles no longer have the orderly growth of the madamedusa vine, rather inheriting the sporadic and disorganized growth of the asexual bubble seeds. Beyond this their development and function are rather similar. A gametangium for releasing and capturing haploid spores growing toward the sky, and across the surface of the bubble a diploid/haploid gradient forms through maturity. The smallest bells (with bubble clusters) are 1 meter in height, while the largest are 3 meters.