Encyclopaedia Elysia | Plants / Pagoda Dometree

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Name: Pagoda Dometree, or Pagoda Dome Tree

Category: Useful

Size: Huge

Lifespan: Indefinite

Appearance

The pagoda dometree is a parasol-shaped tree that only grows in Dardanos. The trunk is actually a twisting mass of thinner branches that weave together into a sturdy pillar. This pillar can have a base and top as wide as fifty feet, but the middle is usually far more slender and may seem barely strong enough to support the weight of the dome-shaped canopy.

Dometrees don't have leaves; the multiple branches that make up the trunk curve up, out and down to form the "floor" of a dome-shaped canopy. Thinner fibres then spear up through the inside of the twisting trunk and spray out from the top to form a dome-shaped canopy that looks quite like thatching.

Watermelon-sized gourds grow year-round inside the hollow canopy to catch and store rainwater that trickles through the thatching. This serves as a filtration system for the tree, leaving behind all the junk (ash from volcanic eruptions, mostly) to provide pure, clean water.

Some dometrees have more than one canopy, where the tree has originally started to sprout at a certain level (often due to space constraints in pagoda forests) and then had the opportunity to grow larger (such as when another tree dies off, leaving an opening). Pagodas rarely grow more than two canopies, and the lower one shrinks and eventually dies off from a lack of nutrition.

Diet: Pagoda dometrees do not have leaves, feeding on geothermal energy instead of chlorophyll and sunlight.

Habitat: Dometrees grow only in Dardanos, close to the Dardanian mountains and volcanoes.

Reproduction: Dometrees have two methods for reproduction. During the Dardanian summer, thin green tendrils twine across the top of the dome and sprout small, white flowers for pollination by birds and bats. At the same time, fat red flowers emerge from the gaps between trunk-branches at the base of the tree for pollination by mammals.

Special Information

Strengths/Abilities:

Dometrees have a natural system that filters out ash from volcanic eruptions, providing a clean water supply to not just the tree but also any wildlife smart enough to crack open the gourds.
The pagoda's filtration system also makes the air inside the canopy and trunk much cleaner during eruptions than outside, providing shelter to anyone caught in the middle of an ash cloud (though not providing safety against laval eruptions).
Though dometrees burn just like any other, their root systems can survive even lava flows. Since they feed on geothermal energy, they can regrow very quickly after an eruption.

Weaknesses:

They rely on geothermal energy, so can only grow where there is plenty of volcanic activity.

Uses:

Pagoda gourds are excellent, natural water storage devices.
Because dometrees are naturally hollow inside, they make good homes — especially for Nymphs.

Origin: …

Other Info: Dometrees make excellent homes for almost anyone willing to live inside a tree, but naturally are a favourite of Dardanian Dryads, who can twist and shape the already unusual trees in virtually any direction.

Creator: Emma