The Plank Epiphyte is a large plant which reacts to motion and impact by extending a large, strong "cirri" away from its body.
Description[]
With features resembling both Earth's crinoids and orchids, the plank epiphyte is an extremely sensitive and giant zooplantae.
Growing on sheer, rocky surfaces, the fibrous root system of the plant forms a “holdfast” and secures its great weight in place. The body of the plant is a brightly patterned, star-shaped “shell” growing around a fronded opening at its center. Within this mouth coils tightly wound vines which terminate in stamens, stigma and fruiting buds. This seeding structure is sweetly pungent, which repels more voracious insects, but attracts larger aerial fauna.
When approached by a larger animal, the true scale of the zooplantae is revealed. Its simple nervous system detects movement and extends the “cirri” to attract and meet the creature, issuing pollen and seeds and using the megafauna to widely disperse them. The unique and distinctive “tongue” of the plank epiphyte has adapted to extend far away from its body to protect it's more sensitive areas from the rough attentions of its chief pollinators.
The extended cirri is strong enough to hold the weight of adult Na'vi, who exploit the zooplantae's pollinating action to gather the plant's brightly colored seedpods. The pods are sticky to touch and staining to the skin, but in skilled hands they can be pulped into glues and resin.
Gathering and Cooking[]
The plank epiphyte fruit is found throughout the Spires. Rarer fruit can be found around Mother's Rise in the south of the Jagged Range subregion of the Spires. It is best gathered in dry weather.