Flora of Kyol: Characteristic Trees

While it was tempting to start with the most unusual and unique plant species in the ecosystems (or to immediately jump into designing weird fungi), I’m starting with some tree species. The trees I’m designing today are going to be some of the most common in their respective ecosystems. Much like in the tropical dipterocarp forests of Southeast Asia or continental pine barrens of the US, these trees will be a major part of how the ecosystem is defined.

Today, I’ll be discussing the Darkwoods of the seasonal swamps, and the Torsitas of the dry regions.

The Floodplain – Darkwoods

The forested floodplains of the Kyol area are defined by the genus commonly known as Darkwood trees. These trees are highly adapted for seasonal flooding. Stabilizing roots help keep them anchored in muddy soil. The small, hard fruits are designed to be distributed by water, containing high concentrations of tannins to discourage fish from eating them.

The wood of these trees is culturally important for its use as a building material. It’s extremely resistant to mold and waterlogging. As the common name suggests, the wood of these trees tends to be very dark, ranging between species from a wenge-like¹The wood of Millettia laurentii gray-brown to an ebony-like black.²It’s easily distinguishable from ebony by lacking ebony’s characteristic hardness and shine, with a surface much more like a standard hardwood. These colors are part of what gives Kyol vernacular architecture (which is typically fairly light on paint) its distinctive look.

High Ground – Torsitas

While the lower regions are dominated by Darkwood trees, the higher ground, with fewer environmental threats, is more diverse. However, there are still some trees that define this ecosystem – specifically, the genus Torsita.

The trees are named for their distinctive multi-trunked body plan.³That is, they have low apical dominance. One common species is Torsita alba – also known as white torsita (for the color of its bark). They’re some of the largest trees in the forest, typically growing around 30 ft in height. The leaves are purplish-green, with the purple tint coming from anthocyanins which discourage predation by insects. They also occasionally undergo cladoptosis, shedding infected limbs that are unneeded.

Torsita alba flowers during the spring, producing purple bell-shaped flowers. The fruits reach maturity in late summer. They’re structured similarly to rosehips, with a fleshy accessory fruit surrounding a cluster of achenes (dry fruit.) The fruit is primarily eaten by a species of omnivorous bat, and as such grow mostly out of reach of ground-dwelling animals. (Because of their small size, the difficulty of harvesting them, and their watery flavor and slimy texture, they aren’t an important part of local cuisine.)

So those are the characteristic trees of the forest ecosystems of Kyol! Well, some of them, at least. While the darkwood swamps and torsita forests are the largest forest ecosystems in the area, they aren’t the only ones. Next time, I’ll be covering the trees characteristic of some of Kyol’s more unusual habitats.