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--- groworld_story [2009-06-02 14:23] – 81.188.78.24
+++ groworld_story [2020-06-06 08:30] – old revision restored (2009-05-19 15:03) 114.119.166.29
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 == Roots ==
-The canopy trees reach deep into the soil and have a long tap root, able to reach underground rivers. Until they find a large water source, the plants' root doesn't waste time growing horizontally - the plant thickens the one root and grows downwards as fast as it can (using a cork-screw motion, to dig into the ground). In case of draught, it will send a few exploratory rootlets in horizontal direction, but even these rootlets will grow horizontally for a short time before resuming the vertical, downwards growth. Once a large enough amount of water is found, the plant will extend the roots, that resemble the branches of its canopy -  it will attempt to envelop the water source as far and wide as possible, growing both thick roots and thin rootlets in all directions. The colour of the roots is similar to the seeds - blue-grey and bone white.
+The canopy trees reach deep into the soil and have a long tap root, able to reach underground rivers. Until they find a large water source, the plants' root doesn't waste time growing horizontally - the plant thickens the one root and grows downwards as fast as it can. In case of draught, it will send a few exploratory rootlets in horizontal direction, but even these rootlets will grow horizontally for a short time before resuming the vertical, downwards growth. Once a large enough amount of water is found, the plant will extend the roots, that resemble the branches of its canopy -  it will attempt to envelop the water source as far and wide as possible, growing both thick roots and thin rootlets in all directions. The colour of the roots is similar to the seeds - blue-grey and bone white.
 == Stems/Trunks ==
-The stem of a canopy tree is very thin to start with. It is extremely resilient and elastic, so it can bend and twist easily (making it resistant to storms and other violent attacks). Its inner skeleton keeps the plant growing upright - the skeleton resembles a double cork-screw (like a DNA helix), spiralling its way through the air and pushing the leaf-bud higher. The cork-screw is made out of microscopic ball-bearings, clinging to each other using a strong, but elastic force. This structure allows the plant to grow fast, without wasting time on thickening the trunk until it reaches canopy height. The strength of the stem is it its ability to always spring back to a vertical position, no matter how much it's bent and twisted. As the tree matures (reaching canopy height), the stem starts thickening and solidifying into a woody trunk. Inside the trunk, the double corkscrew swells up and softens, dissolving the ball-bearings into semi-permeable osmotic chambers. These structures will now function as osmotic pumps, allowing the exchange of nutrients and water between the canopy height and the deep underground roots. The woody skin of the trunk takes a long time to mature and harden. The process of hardening spirals around the trunk. A 'teenage' stem will have quite ornamental spirals of hard bark swirling around the bright green skin of the young sapling. The bark is also quite irregular, reflecting the storms and turbulence that happened during its hardening. In parts where the tree was threatening to break, the bark will grow a thick swirl, as a scab on a wound. These swirls will form orifices on some trees, from which seed-pods can be expelled. Once hardened, the bark solidifies into a sturdy, rock-like outer skin, that erodes very slowly over hundreds of years.
 == Leaves ==
-Canopy trees can have a variety of leaves, all of which share a few common characteristics. They all have a structure of several long, hollow bones, that originate in the bud on top of the trunk and spread radially across the whole surface of the leaf. The bones are a part of the osmotic pump that begins at the edges of the leaf and continues through the trunk into the roots. In between the bones stretch a myriad of thin, elastic capillaries, that form a see-through lace-like structure. The openings between the capillaries are filled with green film (not unlike green soap-bubbles). These membranes are very thin and nearly translucent (allowing enough light to pass through them to illuminate the layers below).
-== Growth ==
-Above ground, the seedling of a canopy layer shoots straight upward, without branching out at first. The seedling will have one thin stem, with a fluffy, leafy bud on top. The growth is solely vertical until the stem thickens. The thickness of the trunk is completed when the canopy height is reached. On this height, the leafy bud on the top of the trunk starts branching outwards in all directions. The leaves grow slowly (it takes them years to reach their full scale), from the bud on top of the stem. The bud splits into several leaf-knots, that unfurl their bones horizontally (like a fist opening into a hand with outstretched and wide-spread long fingers), using the same cork-screw motion as the stem while it's growing upright. While the skeleton is unfolding, in between the larger bones (that will later function as veins) an openwork of capillaries create a thin, lace-like structure. The capillaries excrete a gluey substance, able to capture sunlight and dew and transform them into a thin film, that stretches between the capillaries. In that way the fully grown leaf looks like a massive green membrane, that filters the spectrum of sunlight, to make it gentler on the layers below.
-== Decay ==
-The decay of a canopy tree is as slow and gracious as its growth. As the tree dies, its life-supporting juices evaporate. It looses elasticity in all its parts, starting with the leaves. As the bones and capillaries in the leaves stiffen, the green membranes pop as soap bubbles, leaking fertile greenness on the layers below. At the same time, the roots release their nutrients back to the soil, opening up their skin until the roots have the same lace-like structure as the leaves. The colour fades from all parts of the tree, until it becomes a greyish white, resembling a lace made out of lime rock. Over time, the tree becomes more and more brittle and eroded by the elements. As the roots dissolve, the tree above ground can topple and fall, leaving broken up, ice-like landscapes on the floor of the garden (think of ice formations C.D. Friedrich's paintings). Over time, the  erosion will turn even these hard landscapes into fertile dust.
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 == Fruit ==
-== Growth ==
-- trunk and side branches/platforms go up at the same time - a metre of trunk, which then spreads into a few branches. the middle branch thickens and continues to grow upwards as a trunk.
-- the branches are symmetrical and well proportioned if the tree is alone. if other dwarf trees are around, the branches will elongate and reach towards the other trees, so the tree needs to keep continuous balance between growing of the branches and thickening the trunk not to topple...
-- in presence of other trees, sometimes they will adjust their growth to match the other, so be able to form tunnels and caves woven from their branches
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 == Seeds ==
-The seeds are small, but in each berry there are many of them. They are also quite porous, like small fossilised sponges, able to absorb nutrients as they pass through the temporary hosts' digestive tract. Their shape is spherical, crystalline, composed of a mesh of hexagons and heptagons with semi-permeable membranes stretched between them. The mesh is usually translucent, and the membranes a glowing emerald colour. However, they both absorb the colour of the digestive system of their temporary hosts, so at the end, their outsides are dark brown with black bile.
+The seeds are small, but in each berry there are many of them. They are also quite porous, like small sponges, able to absorb nutrients as they pass through the temporary hosts' digestive tract. (...)
 == Stems ==
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 == Growth ==
   * metaphor: barrier, wall, fence