Arcophylla and Myomotia: Problematic Progress

Happy Thanksgiving break, everyone!  Sufficiently stuffed on turkey and potatoes, and grateful for my many blessings, I now have some time to devote to wrapping up this batch of nereophytes, which marks the halfway point.  When I started on them I didn’t expect to get done until December; it’s nice to see I’m a little ahead of schedule.  And with twenty-six completed and posted, all that is left is phylum Membranophylla, a clade that, much like Tensivolae plants, explores some features and adaptations unseen on Earth.

Order Arcophylla was predictably straightforward, since it was a basic design I had since I first began work with nereophytes, and the Gemellocaputids more so; golden bowstalk is the quintessential genus of this family.  I had always imagined these plants sprawling over hills and valleys, the nereid equivalent of grass, and wanted to depict them as such.  I think the image captures that, and I’m pleased with how it finally turned out.  As with many of these images, where several organisms are present in the frame, there is a great deal of duplication taking place.  I think I’ve done a good job hiding it from all but the most discerning eyes.

I included the fen bowstalk for two reasons: first, to indicate variety among the nereophytes, as well as to exercise my creativity in varying the biological theme; second, to illustrate the breadth of the taxonomic family’s influence.  It took some thinking to figure out exactly how this branch of the bowstalk family tree would differ from the golden breeds, but I think I succeeded.  It was a bit of a challenge to determine exactly how these plants would differ from their cousins, but as I looked at how different grasses of Earth vary, especially those in swampy areas, design ideas soon came to mind: shorter, more succulent stalks, and darker coloration that could be just a cosmetic difference or could reflect differing photosynthetic needs.

The hourglass tree was my first attempt at taking the Arcophylla bauplan to arboreal scales, and an attempt to take the concept of “reef building” out of the ocean.  There may be some biological kinks to work out of the system, but I’m satisfied with the results at this point.  As far as the picture goes, I wonder if I’ve sufficiently captured the glassy nature of the trunks.  I also considered showing what one of the dead trunks looks like when it has collapsed under its own weight, in order to show more of the nereophyte’s life cycle, but as always time is a prohibitive factor.  Perhaps your imagination can fill in those details.

The lingayoni is one of the Barbitids, a family that caused me to do some taxonomic revision as I began to finalize their designs.  Originally, this plant would be the only featured member of a more primitive branch of Arcophylla, neither Gemellocaputid nor Barbitid, but once I realized that the other Barbitids didn’t vary greatly in their respective bauplans, it was clear that some changes needed to be made.  Some of you who were following the site at that time may have noticed some mysterious shuffling around that was a result of those adjustments.

But it was the harpweed that most influenced the design of the Barbitids.  I had a clear image of them in my mind since their inception.  I admit that there may still be some biomechanical considerations to work out, especially when it comes to the egressor tissues and how they serve this design, but at the very least I have the basic ideas down for others to examine.  I consider a lot of these plants a bit of a first draft anyway, and welcome feedback as always.

One of my first real challenges of this batch was the treebuchet; when I first started writing about it on the savanna biome page I had no real concept of its appearance, and placed a sort of “place holder” that roughly approximated how I thought it would ultimately look.  But as I began work on this plant in earnest, I didn’t want to draw a tree that was little more than a scaled up version of its cousins.  So while the treebuchet still fits within the Barbitid bauplan, it seems different enough to accomplish the diversity I want to see in the project.

Moving on from Arcophylla, it was the Myomotia that caused me some real pause in my research and designs.  I had always intended for the newel tree to be different from the others of the clade, but as I visualized it growing from the base of the trunk upwards (a trait very different from Earth plants, but quite common in Nereid clades) I began to wonder where its reproductive structures are located.  In keeping with the nereophytes from which it derived, the central stalk corresponds to the photosynthetic stalk of the Barbitids and similarly evolved structures, but that fact seems to imply that the newel tree’s reproductive organs are located near the base of the tree and not at the tip, as evidenced in the other Myomotes.  This hardly seems an effective placement, and I’m having difficulty resolving the issue; any feedback or insight here would be especially appreciated.

Flaywood starts to stretch into some of the extremes of plausibility, I think.  After reading the plant’s description it’s possible that the reader might interpret that these vines are constantly writhing and twisting; I imagine them to be much less active than that, laying motionless for the most part until stimulated, like traps to be sprung by hapless savanna nereids.  There may still be more fiction than fact in the flaywood, but I’d like to explore them further before dismissing their inclusion entirely.

The final nereophyte of this batch is also the one I most looked forward to, as it’s one of the few additions that provide the conceptual basis for an entire biome.  The coryphee is the “prima ballerina” of the ballerina forests, the nereophyte that gave xenobotanists the impression of graceful dancers.  It’s quite different from the types of plants that are found in similar climates on Earth, which makes it satisfactorily alien, but hopefully not so much so that it too strains credulity.

As always, I welcome thoughtful feedback or insights that can help me develop my work on this project further.  You can either do so here in the comments section or at the appropriate thread in the Speculative Evolution forums.

Tensivolae I: The More Things Change...

It seems like every post I've made about nereophytes has begun with a mention of the time it's taken to get through the group.  I admit that these groups of plants could be done faster, but I have also been wrapping up the last semester of my university studies.  I've graduated now, but I've had enough time afterward to realize that that's no indication that I'll have more time on my hands.  I'm adjusting from the lifestyle of the (seemingly perpetual) student to that of a licensed educator, with all of the job hunting, bureaucracy, and hard work that that implies.  Compound that with the fact that the next group of nereophytes is a large one, and it will be some time before I come back to this blog to post about them.
Ah well, we have others to talk about right now... 

In my last post I focused largely on the artistic representations of the featured genera of Erepofursia, both in terms of illustrative clarity and in technical skill.  While I feel that this batch is an improvement I also want to point out that some of the images turned out to be a little sparser than I had originally intended.  Bare soil is commonly seen in the pictures, and to be honest I'm not sure if that's because I chose to illustrate only the featured nereophyte and excluding all others (excluding epiphytes), or if it's an indication that Nereus may be more sparsely vegetated than Earth.  I like to think that it's the former, and that the imagination can fill in the 'empty spaces' with other plants appropriate to the ecosystem.

This group of nereophytes is really the first part of the much larger clade Tensivolae.  I decided to split the taxonomic class into two groups, with two orders presented in each.  This is the first, older, and less spectacular pair: Excoria and Radiofolia.  They share characteristics with some of the first nereophytes to survive on land, and even bear features that make them more familiar to terrestrial eyes.  That realization prompted some serious thought.  While I had intended for nereid plants to be recognizably different from Earth forms, here I have several that could easily blend in with plants we find on Earth.  I reassure myself by calling it convergence-- after all, plant shapes are rather effective-- but a part of me can't help but wonder if I should have tried to come up with more novel forms.

That said, mangrome turned out to be delightfully alien.  While I don't think any single aspect of its design is that different from what's on Earth, I think the juxtaposition of it all makes it a very interesting and unique creation.  My mind whirls with what kinds nereids could make homes under the shade of the mangrome, or even within its labyrinthine trunk.

I didn't expect the ruby yucca to be too alien, since it's largely inspired by yucca plants I saw while vacationing some years in Sedona, Arizona.  These tall stalks would reach from a spiky little bush, topped with quite visually striking ornamentation.  But since I felt like the yuccas I saw with my own eyes had a surreal alien quality, I figured they would work well on Nereus deserts too.

As anyone who's seen the ballerina forest page can tell, flakefir has undergone some design changes.  The initial design had very little time put into its design, really just slap-shod models designed to fill the space and give the image of the ballerina forest a distinct skyline.  I didn't want to stray too far from that original design (I felt I was onto something) but I really wanted to figure it out with a little more strenuous attention to plausibility.  In the end I think it served to make the plant more interesting.

The concept of the razorbush is a common one, particularly in fictional settings where even the plants are dangerous.  I always wanted to include this kind of plant in the project as it would cause grief for unwary human explorers in whatever relevant fictions I hypothetically produce, but I wanted to make sure that the plant had a plausible enough reason for having sharp, scything blades.  I like to think I came up with something that works, but as always I'd love to hear feedback.

I always intended old man's ear to be a fun one.  While I think the overall concept is conveyed, may go back and do a little redesign to it.  The plants don't seem like they could hold very much water, and I always wanted the reproductive 'tufts' to be a little more whispy lookingPerhaps this is one of the nereophytes that would benefit from some preliminary design in SketchUp before final presentation...

Finally, the fleshette should be familiar to anyone who has been following the Nereus project over the years.  It was a design for a carnivorous plant that I tried out a long time ago, with people asking why it favors larger prey over insectoids, like Earth's carnivorous plants.  The more spectacular image of game-hunting plants aside, I had a hard time imagining the evolutionary pressure for it.  What started as a pattern of shooting barbed seeds into prey so they are carried far away became a method of dissuading herbivores and even felling prey with toxic darts.  The progression seemed natural enough to me, but what do you think?

Well, those are the Excoria and Radiofolia.  They mark the completion of the first third of featured nereophytes for the project.  Like I said, I'll be working on the rest of the Tensivolae, but in the meantime feel free to post any questions or comments about these orders.

Erepofursia: Hit and Miss

Another batch of nereophytes is done.  It's taken longer than I expected, and the plants are by no means all that complicated, either to draw or conceptualize.  One of my artistic weaknesses is fine, repetitive detail; I get bored drawing a fur texture or a convincing field of grass, and here I've been drawing fields, drifts, and thick knots of vegetation.  Some of the images I'm quite pleased with, and others I think could use a new attempt.  In any case, I hope that they are helping to properly convey the nature of the autotrophs of Nereus.

Conceptually, I also think that I've had successes and failures.  The bankvine was always intended to be a sort of 'proto-sog,' an example of how erepofursians got their start from more primitive forms.  However, hindsight reveals what seems like quite the biological leap between the featured Coleria and this first example of a new taxonomic group.  I guess viewers are going to have to fill in the blanks a little.

The sog itself, thanks to insights from the Speculative Evolution forums, became the more specific-- though still quintessential-- avanyu sog.  Again, I don't know if its most interesting features are highlighted, but this is something I think can be fixed.  One of the things I plan on doing at some point is some material (artwork/information) that helps to explain entire clades in general terms.  One such feature would be the mechanism of fluid transport this group pioneers and, in the case of sog, masters.

Musselmat was a simple, quiet success in my mind.  It's a clear transitional form that connects the 'leafless' Gymnovina order (represented by the bankvine and sog) to the forms of the Phyllogera order.  The anatomy of its offshooting pods should also give some indication of the ontogeny for future nereophyte structures.

And while I think it was conceptually satisfying, the feathermat might be a little unclear visually.  The vine portion of the plant is completely lost in the illustration, and while it's true that the downy protrusions do overshadow the feathermat's vine, I think it might be easy to miss how it fits into the clade.  Perhaps, when I'm putting together those clarifying general features I could include an evolutionary timeline where I could show the feathermat's anatomy in a little more detail.

The quetzal vine is another satisfying addition to the group.  It's different-- very different, and it's a good example of how I want to merge the aspects of science and creativity that I see in the most appealing approaches to xenobiology.  When I started thinking about nereid plants, I thought it would be interesting and different if I didn't include any flower analogues.  But when I reached this genus I realized that, despite my intentions, the natural process of development in this project brought about a sort of flower.  I've embraced it, mostly because they're natural, unique, and decidedly non-terrestrial.  Can you?

The sea slough turned out well also, and it helps show how nereophytes aren't simply Earth plants in alien costumes.  The niche of this organism is much like that of seaweed, and while it is a comparatively simple organism, it's more complex than the Earth analogue.  I think that sea slough is a good example of how xenobiology projects like this can echo and even give a nod to terrestrial inspiration, but still be biologically and ecologically unique.

Finally, I've just finished the waterfleece.  It too is strongly influenced by Earth algae (kelp, to be precise), but I have a hard time thinking it achieved the same level of success as the sea slough.  Its picture borders on impressionistic, and it doesn't really stand out as biologically unique in any interesting ways, but it forms a strong ecological base, both in terms of landscape for local swimmers and as a food source.  It began as a sort of kelp-like backdrop for goldwave and it never really changed.  Can't win 'em all, I guess...

Just Waiting For the Pictures to Develop...

The last post in here was in October, and the last post with immediate relevance to my work with Nereus was more than a month before that.  I’m glad to say that, after a semester that—if it wasn’t from Hell itself, certainly took a page from Hell’s playbook—is finally over, I’ve been able to devote some serious time to presenting new plants on the website.

Now, that long hiatus doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working on nereid plants at all, for I have taken pockets of time here and there to organize clades and compose capsules for eventual publication.  But finally I’ve had enough time to devote to illustrations, which I think are a key component of the success of Nereus, or any similar project.  “A picture paints a thousand words,” as it were, and in the context of xenobiology I’ve found that pictures convey a lot more information than might apparent.  A capsule on any given imaginary creature may tell me a great deal about the evolutionary history, noteworthy behavior, or any number of useful details to reinforce the creature’s plausibility, but an accompanying image can either reinforce that plausibility or negate it all in an instant.

So I take my images very seriously, and try to use what skills I can in order to communicate the spirit and flavor of the nereids I create.  Over the years I’ve found that the illustration process has provided me with great triumphs as well as frustrations, surprises, and the occasional need to change capsules in order to fit with things I like in the picture; such has been the case with my first steps into my presentation of the nereophytes.

Because Coleria is a phylum that functions at a largely microscopic scale, I had a hard time figuring out exactly how to present them visually.  I started with sea grain, and a relatively straightforward capsule, but when I started to put together an illustration for the entry I was just never happy with it.  This turned out to be the biggest stumbling block for my nereophytes so far, because I didn’t want to move on until I could get that picture done.  Well, eventually I just said the image that’s up for the sea grain is good enough.  Maybe one day I’ll redo it, but in the end I shouldn’t let a presentation of nereid plants be halted by one little genus of algae.

So far with my nereids, almost all illustrations were rendered based on 3D models built in SketchUp so that I could explore biometrics, proportions, and image composition.  It’s been a technique that’s served me well, but after the frustrations I faced with drawing the sea grain, I decided on a different tactic with the verebull: a completely hand drawn composition without any preliminary 3D work.  While I still think the image for the verebull could be improved, it came together rather easily.  No muss, no fuss, and on to the next one.

Rock paint falls into the category of one of the images that has surprised me.  I used the same non-SketchUp technique here, penciling some stony backgrounds and adding the plant life itself in Photoshop.  I’m pleased with how it all turned out, but what surprised me was how the rock paint actually looks on the rocks.  What I had originally imagined was something more akin to desert lichen in appearance, but what has come about is something that is more visually interesting, and may help to paint future landscape images in a more alien light.

And I’m not sure if that pun was intended or not…

But if the rock paint surprised me, the splashmoss really came out of nowhere.  The original image in my head was something akin to shelf fungus, but as I sat down with pencil and paper, something else came out, something that looked more like a rash of pustules than anything else.  At first I thought about restarting, but since I was on a roll with alien looking plants I decided to go with it.

At some future date I may come back and see if the drawings I made are truly plausible, but for the time being I’m pleased with how the pictures have turned out and I’m willing to follow my initial impression that what I’ve drawn fits with scientific laws as we know them.  I look forward to anyone’s feedback on these matters, both in terms of the relationship between the capsules and their illustrations, and of the plausibility of the genera themselves.

A Rolling Stone Gathers No Splashmoss

Though my class and work schedule are keeping me pretty busy, I managed to get a little bit written for the plant section of the website. As always, the text is subject to change, especially this early in the process, but I hope it gives a bit of an overview of what's to come.

As I've been researching and preparing, I've noticed that some of my plant ideas may need some drastic redesigns to move them more into the plausible end of the spectrum. I've provided images and descriptions of some plants throughout the animal and biome pages, but some of that information may be contradicted by my upcoming work with the plants themselves. I'll try and correct these points where I can, but otherwise consider the plant entries to trump information found elsewhere.

I also included a paragraph about the idiosyncrasies of the fictional scientists for a bit of flavor. I've always found such things an enjoyable inclusion to speculative projects, helping to flesh out the connection between the imaginary creatures/biosphere and the human audience.

At some point in the near future I will have the page up for the first group, the Coleria.

A Parade of Plants

So now that the first batch of animals is done, I've been gearing up to present fifty plant species of Nereus. I'm still working to get all the plants into a satisfactory cladogram and taxonomic classification, but things are coming along nicely. I've decided that, rather than featuring individual species I'll focus on genera, that way I'll be able to speak in more, well, general terms (notice the pun? ;)). I noticed many times while working with animal species that I was occasionally limited in what possibilities I could explore within a given entry; hopefully writing about a genus at a time rather than a species will allow me a little more flexibility in coverage.

Another aspect I'm considering, and would love some reader feedback on, is the order of presentation. The animals were grouped by biome, but with the plants I could present them a clade at a time, producing them in groups based on genetic relationship rather than by shared environment. A couple benefits I see from this are:

- Continuity of concept and appearance. With the animal nereids I would often have to revisit clades in order to ensure that the features and attributes of my current species meshed with its 'predecessors.' This occasionally resulted in wildly different methods of, say, reproduction or similar details, and even some niggling little aesthetic differences. While I feel that ultimately the animal cladogram came out pretty well, there was quite a bit of adjustment I had to make in order for it to make sense (and still more work in some cases, but that's a topic for another post); working within clades will probably solve those problems.

- Linear evolutionary progression. By starting at the beginning and working my way through the clades, I could better show the progressive trends of evolutionary adaptation and complexity, further reinforcing my own scientific understanding of the project. This would also not lock me into the developmental quagmire I found when it became clear that I needed to add insulating hair to some of the animals.

I think this method of organizing the plant presentation could certainly work, but I also think that the benefits of ecological symbiosis and the diversity produced from spreading out the clades as I did with the animals could have merit too. I just don't know which one would be best, so I put the question to you, the reader. By clade or by biome?