The attack of the FLYING PLANTS!
No, not pants.
I was pondering over the possibilities of photosynthesis-based creatures last night, mostly just because it was interesting. But then, this morning, it occurred to me that mobility is a hitherto unexplored evolutionary track for survival in an environment that suffers from Lots of Really Big Fires. (Not to mention, two advantages my world has for photosynthesis are the highly consistent light levels on the front continent, and the higher levels of oxygen in the atmosphere.)
That is a thought I want to explore in a more generalized sense later, but for now, I have dreamt up this wonderful little (well okay, not so little) flying plant-”creature”.
Visually, it sort of resembles a hybrid between a kite, a glider and an umbrella. There is a single green “leaf”, which is the photosynthesizing and air-lifting surface. The underside has a network of branches/framework/what have you (which is where the umbrella/kite part comes in). This not only supports the leaf and lends it structure, but it also is the skeleton. There are… well, some sort of plantish tendons at the joints that allow it to move, primarily to steer.
It would probably live in the air just above the canopy of the superbark forest, gliding around on air currents. When it rains, it would land on the treetops, lift the “arms” up to form a sort of cup with the leaf to collect the water. It would then have time to properly absorb enough water for its reservoirs or whatnot, instead of having to make do with what little it leeches from passing raindrops.
Reproduction I decided would be pollen-based. The flowers would bloom around the edge of the leaf, forming a sort of lacy rim. Ideally they would have some rudimentary scent organ so as to recognize when they are in the vicinity of another kitebrella (I just made that up right now, can you tell?). That would mean they could release pollen only then, thus boosting the reproductive efficiency by a lot. That’s ideally, though. It would work just fine if they just released it into the air above the superbark canopy, willy-nilly.
The flowers would be pollinated, turn into seeds, which would then simply drop down. The ones that make it through the canopy would probably die in a fire. The others, however, would sprout, grow into full kitebrella plants, and glide off themselves.
The how of that particular bit was stumping me, but resolved itself very neatly when I figured out how to deal with the last issue of how the plant obtains sufficient nutrients. Periodically, the thing would end up landing on the tree canopy (not just during rain). Then, it would put out little sort of feeder root things that would work their way into the branches they landed on, and extract what nutrients it needed. Then it would detach those little pseudo-roots in a similar fashion to deciduous trees dropping leaves in the fall, and float off again.
It’s obvious how this would solve my seedling issue, of course. They’d simply exist as parasitic plants, essentially, until they were grown enough to survive in the air.
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