Yuka Kazami [AU] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
justaflowergirl) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rakuen2012-08-09 05:54 pm
justaflowergirl) wrote in rakuen2012-08-09 05:54 pm
Entry tags:
Abnormal Botany: Introduction
Characters: Yuka Kazami [AU] and Conquest students[Yuka stands at the head of a clear space in the greenhouse. Next to her is a large box-shaped object with a cloth thrown over it. Anyone who looks closely might guess from the way the cloth drapes against it that the object is something more like a cage than anything normally associated with plants. Anyone who tries to look more than closely gets shooed away.]plus anyone else who wants to sneak in, Yuka won't notice or care
Format: Any
This log is: open
Location: Conquest greenhouse
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin.
Warnings: none
Welcome to Abnormal Botany. I'm Yuka Kazami, and I have no idea what I'm doing. Please bear with me; no one asked if I actually knew how to teach anything before they gave me this job.
Some of you have probably studied plants before. You might have learned about the structure of various parts of plants, or the chemical reactions that drive them, or even just how to grow certain ones. And these are important things!
But those things will also only take you so far. The plant kingdom holds mysteries that they can't prepare you for. Some might be called literally supernatural, others merely strange.
This is the goal of Abnormal Botany - to show you some of the true wonders and oddities that are out there, and in doing so let you cast off the shackles of your assumptions of what plants can or should be.
Maybe you'll learn how to handle unknown supernatural plants too. But I won't take any credit for that happening, since I really don't know how to teach -that-.
Since we're just starting, I've selected something relatively simple for today. You've probably seen a flytrap before...
[Yuka pulls the cloth away, revealing that underneath is in fact a cage. Inside is one of these. It's about a foot tall. It drifts back and forth for a little while before finding a patch of light that agrees with it.]
... But have you seen one that -flies-?
That's far from the only unusual thing about this specimen, although you might say that everything else starts there. Typical carnivorous plants rely on their prey for a particular nutrient that is in short supply in their environment. Lacking a root system for most of their life cycle, these flytraps get almost everything through predation. They even acquire a significant amount of their energy from digestive process rather than through photosynthesis, which is basically unheard of elsewhere.
The main problem for these plants, however, is water. With their main supply being the limited amount of rainfall the plant itself can catch, they require an extremely humid environment to thrive. Most are found near lakes or rivers.
This particular specimen is a dwarf variety, and consumes mostly small insects and whatever the person raising it decides to throw it - ones this small can't really catch anything on their own that can satisfy their needs. The more common varieties prey on birds, bats, or giant insects. Some can even be dangerous to people, although they usually aren't a threat as long as you don't blunder into them.
As for how they fly? Sorry, no one's figured that one out yet. It does provide the plant some advantages to go with the problems though. Ground-based pests, for instance, are simply a non-issue. They can relocate themselves as conditions require, and in fact commonly shift throughout the day to get more sunlight. And only rarely are they directly threatened by floods or other disasters, although they may suffer later on due to the interruption in their food supply.
Are there any questions?
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[By way of demonstration, Yuka thrusts her arm into the cage - although she's careful to not quite touch the flytrap. It shifts away from her a bit, but doesn't otherwise react.]
[A moment later, point demonstrated, she removes her arm.]
That would be a bit more risky with one of the common varieties, but even those generally won't bother anything the size of a human that isn't actually attacking it.
The largest ones, however, will perceive an arm as conveniently bite-sized, and will respond accordingly. That's pretty much the reason they don't do well - ones that attack people tend to get chopped up by adventurers.
Although sometimes the adventurers also come out quite a bit worse for wear...
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That's it precisely. Very few plants are truly dangerous if handled properly... But there are quite a few that are capable of punishing the incautious.
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