Barnacle Yam.
A tremendously tall “plant” from a very high gravity planet. The “trunk” is very fleshy and fairly flexible. The stalk itself, however, is rigid and semi-metallic. They are comparable in height to wax palms, often falling just shy of 200 feet (easily the tallest on the planet).
Liquivorous herbivores can pierce the bulb and slurp up the juices, while the flowery photosynthesizing organ on top is only under threat from ratworms and their rows of horrible little legs.
Normally, the top would have more “branches”, there’s only one there for clarity’s sake.
I have a stockpile of bizarre alien plants somewhere if people want more of these.
speculative evolution xenobiology exobiology speculative botany???
it’s a real shame monopods don’t work well.
alien xenobiology exobio speculative evolution speculative zoology
