The Mature Floating Thunderpod is a plant which explodes on impact, releasing a cloud of irritant pollen. It is found throughout the skies of the Spires.
Description[]
The floating thunderpod is an orchid-like plant that grows at high altitudes across Pandora. Named for its seeding flowerhead, the thunderpod itself can be thought of as a gas filled “fruit,” composed of squat, inflated segments that grow around a central stem. These pale, red veined segments are each tipped with a fin-like, translucent petal. A spray of feathery “leaves” emits from the stem at the top of the pod.
Usually growing in groups, on the tops or sides of floating mountains, each plant is composed of a fibrous root structure bearing a single bud. These developing flower heads metabolize nutrients, inflating the hollow, seed-growing segments with a lifting gas which gradually pulls the roots away from the rock surface.
Once mature, the gas filled flower head has somewhat neutral buoyancy in the Pandoran atmosphere. It detaches from the parent plant and gradually floats away, its ancillary petals and upper leaves helping it remain upright in the breeze. The flower head itself is extremely robust and can be buffeted by strong winds without being damaged, but “nerves” in the petal tips and lower leaves can trigger the pod to explode, dispersing its seeds over a wide area.
This explosion is loud and extremely powerful, and is triggered naturally by one of two occurrences. If the pod is decomposing, and if its simple nervous system detects the magnetic field of a floating mountain below.
This explosion can also be triggered by contact with an aerial predator.
Rapid fermentation of the plant's internal gasses means that a floating thunderpod can go from a ripe state to a more unstable, rotten state in a matter of hours. A rotten thunderpod is highly toxic, and its explosion will distribute irritant seeds and pollen over a wide area.
Na'vi banshee riders soon learn to distinguish between the older, irritant pods and the younger ones.