The Flora of
Ooranye
General remarks
Not quite so rich in species as Earth, Ooranye can
nevertheless boast an impressive flora, especially considering its
distance from the Sun. Many of the forests which clothe up to two
per cent of the plains consist of trees 150 or even 200 yards high,
of varied species and shades of blue and green. Other areas of
plain and hilly country are covered with scrub and/or moss.
The narps
These are perhaps the most dangerous plants on the
planet. They can live for millions of days, and most of that time
seem motionless, but when a wayfarer skims too close, the narp's
laser-tipped stem can aim and fire, and for the next few tens of
thousands of days the plant slowly gathers in the wreckage with sweeps
of its leaves, to ingest it in its acid-oozing core.
The katora
The rare katora groves have sometimes been held as
sacred to the world-spirit, but actually the intelligence haunting them
is that of the katora themselves. Spiky, vaguely hawthorn-like,
they are occasionally apt to tremble though no wind is blowing. It
is believed that during this phase of the Great Cycle the plants are in
a kind of trance. Hardly anything is known of them, or of the
source of the beliefs concerning them, but this lack of detailed
knowledge is combined with a conviction that when one stands in a katora
grove one is in the presence of a secretive, telepathic
intelligence.
The vheic
These are the glowing ell-light plants which are
cultivated in the fields around the cities of Syoom, where their
natural glow normally pulses in a thirty-hour cycle,
following the rhythm of the throom. See micro-organisms.
Brightening the cities' contados with zones of golden territory, the
vheic provide fuel for skimmers, airships, land vehicles and also for
static machinery of every type. Furthermore, ell-light phials
provide stable backing for the phial-credit currency system. The
civilization of Syoom would grind to a halt without the
vheic.
Up to era 7, vheic could only be used in its
uncompressed form, as a relatively inefficient fuel, or for
lighting.
Successful experiments in the use of compressed
ell-light for power were first carried out in era 7, the Nitrogen
Era. The phials - a kind of standard fuel-cell - came into
widespread use in Era 10, the Neon Era.
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