Raft-Building Cone Puffgrass

Raft-Building Cone Puffgrass
(Thalassastipes ratis)
Information
Creator	Disgustedorite Other
Week/Generation	26/163
Habitat	Wind Temperate Coast, Dass Temperate Coast, Jindy Tropical Coast, BigL Tropical Coast, Clarke Temperate Coast, King Tropical Coast, Chum Tropical Coast, Elerd Temperate Coast, South LadyM Temperate Ocean, LadyM Tropical Ocean, North LadyM Temperate Ocean, South Jujubee Temperate Ocean, Jujubee Tropical Ocean, North Jujubee Temperate Ocean, Fermi Temperate Coast, Soma Temperate Coast, Fly Tropical Shallows, Hydro Tropical Coast, Oz Temperate Coast, Maineiac Temperate Coast, Yokto Salt Marsh, Always Salt Swamp, Glicker Salt Swamp, Jeluki Salt Swamp, Gec Salt Swamp, Biocat Salt Swamp, Huggs Salt Marsh, Blocks Salt Marsh, Bone Salt Marsh, Irinya Salt Marsh, Blood Salt Swamp, Ichthy Salt Swamp, Terra Salt Swamp, Bardic Salt Swamp, Kenotai Salt Swamp, Wright Salt Swamp, Pipcard Salt Swamp
Size	80 cm tall, varied colony width
Primary Mobility	Sessile
Support	Unknown
Diet	Photosynthesis
Respiration	Passive (Stomata)
Thermoregulation	Ectotherm
Reproduction	Sexual (Male and Female, Spores, Cone), Asexual (Runners)
Taxonomy
Domain Kingdom Subkingdom Division Class Order Superfamily Family Genus Species	Eukaryota Phoenoplastida Phoenophyta (info) Rhagioanthia Phoenocarpopsida Phoenocarpales Cryoanthacea Thalassastipaceae Thalassastipes Thalassastipes ratis

Ancestor:	Descendants:
Pelagic Puffgrass	Tetracone Puffgrass

The Raft-Building Cone Puffgrass split from its ancestor. It has gained the ability to reproduce asexually using runners. However, these runners are not used to carpet their driftwood home; instead, they only emerge near the edge of the driftwood piece and serve to "grab" other pieces of driftwood to create a larger, more stable raft. This is where it gets its name, and this capacity is what allows it to build what is perhaps Sagan 4's most unique microclimate.

Raft-Building Cone Puffgrass colonies can be massive, sometimes even a few kilometers in width, but they rarely exceed a few meters due to storms and fauna activity tearing them apart. In the event that a colony survives the test of time, it can get larger and larger, and it will also get thicker as new grass and even other flora such as trees grow on top of old individuals. This can form floating islands, but in the grand scale of geologic time, they don't last that long as they can still rot apart or collide and sink. The underside of these islands are quite literally made of detritus, even after the original driftwood making up the island rots away, attracting all manners of decomposers and detritivores to feed on them. Methanogenic microbes such as Seacleaners may live inside the islands, feasting on the detritus as well as helping to keep them afloat by producing often massive pockets of methane gas.

The female cone of the Raft-Building Cone Puffgrass is shorter and more compact, but it is still fleshy. Its reproduction is unchanged; male spores are airborne and will land in female cones to fertilize them, and the fertilized spores are dispersed using the long hairs that give the puffgrass lineage its name. They germinate early, producing necessary structures such as leaves and roots so that they can obtain food and water while waiting to land in a suitable place to grow. Similar to their ancestor, they remove excess salt by transporting it to specific leaves which are then shed.