Puffball Tree

Puffball Tree
Flora Information
Planet	Pandora
Na'vi Name	Rumut
Taxonomy	Obesus rotundus - fat and round
Height	15 meters
Length	6 meters
Behind the scenes
First appearance	Avatar

The puffball tree (Na'vi name: rumut) is from the same genus as the puffer, puff daddy and vein pod. The tree is tall with globular structures supported by the branches. They are filled with hydrogen gas and sodium hydroxide, which can cause them to explode if provoked. The plant is very important in Pandora's eco-system, because of these structures. They absorb toxic gases like life-size vacuoles in plant cells. When they are large enough, they break free of the plant and float upwards. They also absorb excess sodium from the soil, and so the humans brought samples back to Earth, for potential use in areas where overfarming has left soils salty and useless.

The Na'vi harvest the leaves because of their salty taste. They also use them to feed livestock. They have learned to be careful of the gaseous balls, due to their explosive nature.

First-time adventurers often mistake puffball trees for banshee eggs due to the scale-like leaf patterns on the balls.

Trivia

• In AVTR Advanced Team, puffball trees can be destroyed to make shortcuts in the map.

Sources

James Cameron's Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide pg 138-139

References

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