# sac fungi

[500-moths-in-a-trenchcoat]

kingdom winner: FUNGI!!

[mushroomgay]

Lincolnshire, UK, Novemeber 2023

Collared earthstar (Geastrum triplex)

These gorgeous fungi emerge initially as a globe-like fruiting body consisting of a spore sac (the bulbous part on top) and an outer layer that will quickly split and spread outwards, pushing the spore sac higher and forming the star shape underneath. These fungi are known as 'collared' because of the 'arms' of this species having a tendency to crack as they bend backwards, forming a sort of 'collar' that the spore sac sits on, as you can see in this photo.

[lichenaday]

Lecanora intricata

Lichens have a few different ways to reproduce (they're just awesome like that) but most lichen symbioses include an ascomycete fungi, AKA a sac fungi. These fungi create spores in internal sacs known as asci (singular: ascus), and lichenized ascomycetes often house these sacs in their apothecia, or fruiting bodies. So you see those dark spots on the surface of our pal L. intricata here? Those are its apothecia, or its fruiting bodies, from which fungal spores will be ejected to go out and hopefully form their own little lichens someday. Pretty neat, huh? L. intricata is a crustose lichen with a verrucose (wart-like)-areolate (tile-like) thallus. It has a gray-green to yellow-green surface sitting atop a dark prothallus (a layer of fungal hyphae). It should look something like puzzle-pieces on a dark surface. It has blackish-green to brown, irregularly shaped apothecia immersed in the thallus surface. L. intricata grows on silicious rock and occasionally wood in montane, boreal, and arctic habitats.

images: source | source | source | source

info: source | source | source

[seabeck]

Here’s the new Bird’s Nest fungi I saw today! Seek initially called it common birds nest but the spore sacs didn’t look the right color and I couldn’t find any examples of them on site actually turning into the iconic nest shape. inaturalist says they are amorphous birds nest

[pokemonbiologyirlthetabletop]

This might be a weird question, but what inorganic pokemon, would you say, are the best parents?

Hmmmmm.... I had to look up the Mineral Egg Group and give the Only In This Group listing a hard look

My gut is telling me that Golurk would probably be the best parent 🤔 there were others solely in the Mineral Egg Group but then I realized they were all technically organic so didn't count. I'm uncertain if Steelix/Onix would be a good parent... Parenting is often reflective of a species role in the ecosystem (but not necessarily). A species that provides good parenting often have relatively fewer babies in a year, like birds, elephants, cats, penguins, humans, etc. But there's also cases like octopuses where they dedicate their lives to protecting their eggs and then die of starvation, but they have HUNDREDS of eggs. And few would argue that was anything less than truly stellar and dedicated parents. And there are spiders who will vigorously protect their egg sacs until they hatch, then go on with their lives afterwards, often facing immense starvation, even death. But there's also frogs and bugs and other such species. And then there's plants and fungi! Or corals (an animal). All this to say, that having not thought too hard yet about the ecology of Steelixes and Onixes, I can't say for sure if they'd actually be good parents, or if they'd be like many animals and abandon their eggs to fend for themselves... But I have a gut feeling that Steelixes/Onixes would be good parents. As for Golurks, well obviously they'd be great parents! They're golems! Golems are protectors! And Golurks with their protective natures and human-like resemblance, lends me to believe that would they would be marvelous parents.

Hope that answer was satisfactory :)

[lair-master]

Dryad Poisoner’s Kit. This poisoner’s kit, made of bark and leaves, includes the sacs, fungi, and other equipment necessary for the creation of poisons. Proficiency with the kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to craft or use poisons. Also, when a poison you crafted with this kit imposes the poisoned condition on a creature, you have advantage on all ability checks to interact socially with the creature until the condition ends.

[es46]

The concept is poison arrow frogs, with some gremlin thrown in there - RARTAMUS Title - Poisonclad frog Monster class - Amphibian Known locales - Canyons, wasteland and subterranean systems Element/ailment - Bleed + Poison Elemental weakness - Fire (3), Thunder (3), Water (3), Ice (2), Dragon (1) Ailment weakness - Sleep (3), Blast (3), Paralysis (1), Stun (1), Poison (0) Rartamus is an amphibian typically found occupying the rugged terrain around canyons and tunnel networks. It is easily identified by its garish red and purple colouring as well as its long claws and spines. As expected, the exotic colours warn of its toxic nature; venom glands swell beneath its skin and release thick globules of poison across its body. An opportunist, Rartamus is predominantly a scavenger that follows the trail of predators, picking over their scraps. Occasionally they will sample fruit, tubers and fungi, but dead flesh holds the most appeal to Rartamus. They are not known to actively hunt other creatures, even small critters, and so humans tend not be noticed by the amphibian. That said, Rartamus can be considered impish or cruel, and it is not above tormenting smaller creatures with its claws and venom, apparently for its own amusement. Field workers are advised to keep torch pods close at hand, as the amphibian detests open flames. Its sharp teeth and claws are surprisingly effective at delivering vicious wounds to other creatures, inducing a Bleed effect on hunters. Between these and its mobility, Rartamus handles rivals or predators with defensive and infuriating tactics, whittling down the opponent with hit-and-run tactics. Even if it is struck or grabbed, however, the foe may regret it when the globules of poison swollen on Rartamus's body burst, soaking them in a deadly toxin. The amphibian is thus avoided by most monsters, deemed too troublesome to prey on. Occasionally Rartamus will gather in groups, typically to secure feeding grounds or try to frighten a larger monster away from its kill. They are surprisingly social, grooming one another and engaging in chases and play-fights. A large female tends to run these gangs, and when she's ready to produce young, the males compete for her favour by presenting her gifts. She will eventually head down to find an underground acid-water reservoir, where she will produce an acid-resistant egg sac. The tadpoles that emerge can survive acidic conditions, feeding on plant life, but eventually assume a terrestrial lifestyle and head for open air on maturing. Interestingly, Rartamus can form mutalistic relationships with adult female Golizerra. The temnoceran employs the amphibian as a caretaker for her young, who can be vulnerable to nest-raiders. In exchange for ensuring their safety, Rartamus is protected from its own enemies by Golizerra. However, they must be cautious; this beneficial relationship only lasts as long as the Golizerra has a brood, and she may turn on Rartamus once the young disperse. Male Golizerra, of course, offer no courtesy to begin with, and are among the few creatures that can reliably prey on Rartamus. Though considered a weaker monster (Low Rank - 1, High/Master Rank - 1), Rartamus can't be underestimated given its agility and ailments. While it is too wily to be caught by pitfall traps, shock traps can stun the amphibian. Water and fire weapons are effective at countering its venom deposits, either washing or burning them away, thus leaving it vulnerable to attack on its legs and underside. Rartamus tends not to bother other monsters, shadowing the larger predators and avoiding any aggressors. Occasionally it will conflict with the snake wyvern Qessalys, who itself is an opportunist seeking easy meals. Rartamus is best defined by its relationship to a mother Golizerra. This alliance is quite productive, and even monsters as powerful as the elder dragon Eltos Rachsha can be stymied by the pair working together. - Thank you for reading and take care.

[liminalhymnal]

Going off my prior Dungeon post, I gotta say I love fantasy biology so much that its honestly a special interest of mine. It's seldom encountered but Dungeon Meshi really does wonders with it for world-building. Other fantasy stories don't really tell you why a certain creature developed its unique quirks or how they work other than the baseline of ~magic~. Yes, dragons can breathe fire, but how? And why? While DM doesn't exactly go into depth at the latter, it still shares a lot of biological information by explaining how to cook certain creatures.

Of course if you're gonna eat a Walking Mushroom you're still gonna want to know how to tell toxic fungi apart from the actual friendly fungi. Of course that suit of armor isn't really haunted, it's instead used as a shell for a soft-bodied creature who otherwise is like a hermit crab. Yeah this creature isn't meant to be eaten but if you remove the poison sacs, cut around the extremely combustible liver, and cook out the flammable juices from its skin you can still enjoy this rare delicacy.

[thatmentallystablechick]

Continuing on with the malicious shrooms for #Funguary …today’s prompt is the super-creepy Clathrus Archeri (also known by names like Devil’s Fingers or Octopus Stinkhorn)!

I swear, it seems like everything in the Clathrus family of fungi looks like it’s straight out of some sci-fi horror film - none of them look like anything you’d find on our planet! Clathrus Archeri are a particularly weird species, imo: they grow inside an egg-like sac before emerging and spreading out into the red fungus that you see. They aren’t actually poisonous, either, from what I understand - but they apparently smell so bad that you probably wouldn’t even want to bother trying one!

Fun fact: in my first few sketches for this mushroom girl, I originally had her looking a bit MORE devilish, if that’s even possible (i.e., red skin, black dress, the whole deal)! I always planned to have the fungi growing out of her body as fingers, horns, and tentacles, but somewhere along the way, I got to thinking: “What if her body was like the sac that the fungus grows out of?” And this was the result! Not sure what that means for her when the fungus completely finishes growing, though…probably best not to think too hard about it.

Made with Ohuhu markers and Shuttle Art pencil crayons

[tribbetherium]

Is there a possibility of the meatmoss developing photosynthesis? Maybe by having a symbiotic relationship with some sort of photosynthetic bacteria or fungi?

The shroomors, a free-living tissue mass descended from the transmissible tumors of the harmsters, have thrived in the Sub-Arcuterran cavern system in the form of meatmoss: forming a symbiotic partnership with a chemosynthetic bacterium, the meatmoss became the cave's primary producer and basis for the ecosystem, functionally replacing plants in a world where light is all but absent.

But while meatmoss is confined to the cavern system, other lineages of the shroomors spread and flourish on the surface world, aided in part by the actions of the pterodents: distant relatives of the loupgaroos and thus the harmsters, who were genetically similar enough to harbor them and spread them throughout the planet as they flew from continent to continent.

Basal shroomors, ones that grow on carrion and are spread by scavengers, still exist, primarily on Mesoterra. But various other lineages have evolved, all seeking partnerships with other organisms, and thus are able to thrive despite being an incomplete animal lacking the faculties to otherwise survive on its own. Some have formed partnerships with plants, attaching to their roots and supplying them with organic compounds in exchange for some of the plant's produced sugars. Others partnered up with fungi, sharing essential nutrients and water with their hosts who in turn aid them in decomposing organic matter. But on South Ecatoria, growing on the surfaces of damp logs and soil in moist environments, comes the most peculiar partnership of all: Stormchief's eyes (Phylloculus polyops).

Stormchief's eyes are a unique three-way symbiosis between a unicellular alga, a shroomor, and a fungus: the fungus, forming the "roots", provides support and dredges up water from deep within the soil, the shroomor, forming the "body", provides structure and helps metabolize certain nutrients with the help of enzymes, and the algae, forming the "leaves", are contained in small sacs, typically 1-2 cm wide, provided by the shroomor that are the only part of the system to grow visibly above ground, where, shielded from dehydration, they are able to photosythesize for their partners. So tightly bonded are the three that none of the components can now survive without the others, and even its reproduction requires its "spores" to be a capsule containing a few cells from all three components, able to weather the elements until it finds a suitable place to grow.

Stormchief's eyes are well known to the northhounds, especially the woodwolves and vulpins, and are referenced in their lore and mythology. Their name comes from an old vulpin folktale that tells of the leader of the spirits of the storms, whose physical form was torn apart in fury by the creator spirits when he dared question their authority, and afterward incorporated into the earth itself, parts of his essence springing up from living things in broken fragments. In reference to this myth, a small, pointed white fungus, a flattened, rounded tree-growing mushroom, and a pink fleshy carrion shroomor all found in the same locales have also been respectively known as "Stormchief's Teeth", "Stormchief's Ears" and "Stormchief's Tongue" as their common names, and all four of these ingredients play a part in various vulpin ceremonial rituals. As the bulbs of Stormchief's eyes also contain mild narcotic chemicals that serve as insecticides to deter bugs from eating it, it has also contibuted to woodwolf lore and beliefs, with the distorted visual effects of its ingestion being described in their myths as the final, dying visions of the Stormchief himself, still trapped within the "eyes" and briefly passed on to those that partake of it.

[musicalsiphonophore]

Bunch of answers:

-The thing in the picture is a 𝘚𝘺𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘢, a kind of Xenophyophorean, which are specialized foraminiferans known for making funky tests (shells) out of sediments. It has no relationship to plants and can't photsynthesize, not sure where you gor that from :)

-SARS viruses have no relationship to the SAR clade. SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome whereas (T)SAR is just the initials of its majour groups. The name similarity is a complete coincidence.

-S: Stramenopiles is a diverse group of organisms also called Heterokonts (greek for different flagella), as most have at one point of their life cycle 2 flagella, one with and one without "little hairs" on top of the flagellum and the length is also different. Some notable representatives:

• Oomycetes, also known as pseudofungi, which are organisms that look quite a bit like fungi (they form hyphae and micelia) but have no relationship at all. Some are saprophytes whereas others are parasites of plants and fish, including potato blight, the organism that caused the Irish Potato Famine

• Diatoms: Unicellular algae which form very beautifully patterned shells out of silica (so glass), and are very abundant.

• Brown algae: Brown algae have no relationship to plants or other algae. Unlike plants and red and green algae, which acquired their chloroplast from a primary endosymbiosis event with a cyanobacteria, brown algae and many other unicellular algae acquired their chloroplasts by undergoing endosymbiosis with 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 already existing alga. (look into endosymbiosis theory if u have no idea whats going on here)

-A: Alveolata are organisms which have a kind of sacs made of membrane under their main membrane called alveoli. They are also incredibly diverse. They include

• Dinoflagellates: A kind of algae which (in some cases) modified their alveoli to fill them up with cellulose and form a kind of shell. They have funky shapes and are often abundant in the sea. Some of them are known for causing massive blooms which turn the sea red (red tides) and can cause food poisoning if you eat seafood from where a bloom happened.

• Ciliates: Organisms known for having lots of cilia on their bodies, won't go into them because they're very diverse and different, but you can think of a 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘶𝘮 for a typical example of a ciliate.

• Apicomplexans: Mostly parasitic organisms which have a sort of "complex" on the tip of the cell which helps them inject themselves into other cells, this includes the organism which causes malaria, 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘶𝘮.

-R: Rhizaria are amoeboid organisms which often have long pseudopodia called filopodia and are, who would've guessed, also very diverse. The most well known of them are

•Formanifera: A group of mostly marine organisms which form single or multi-chambered shells which can get very complex and are abundant in the sea, so much so that if you know which foraminifera lived in which time periods, you can use their shells in marine sediments to assign a date to them.

• Radiolarians: Organisms which are known for making very intricate and beautiful shells which are very diverse in shape. Look up some of Ernst Haeckel's illustrations of Radiolarians.

-T: Regarding the Telonemia, very few species are described and they aren't very well known, but genetic analysis placed them close to the SAR clade so the acronym is sometimes extended to TSAR

Hope all this helps

THANK YOU SO MUCH MY DUDE THIS IS AN AMAZING ANSWER AHAHAHAHA

^this is why I thought they were related to plants, because both SAR and plants / plant-related things are in this clade, and it says most of the organisms which can photosynthesise are in this clade. But I misunderstood it, thinking it meant most of the organisms that are in this clade can photosynthesise. So, SAR can’t photosynthesise. Is this article wrong to say SAR and plants are related?

Ok so I found this article, which has this tree of life in it-

Which suggests plants and TSAR are very loosely related in that they’re closer than eg opisthokonts. And this was in 2020 so is probably fairly close to how things are modernly. (I haven’t fact checked this article. I hope it’s mostly true…)

ANYWAYS

If the xenophyophore makes itself a shell, is that what you can see in the photo? Is the organism itself smaller than the shell or does it fill it? The shell is made of sediment, is it the texture of sediment? All squishy? Or is it shell-ish?

What does saprophyte mean? (Nvm I googled it, it means something which munches upon dead things to survive)

OH DIATOMS SOUND SO COOL!! Kinda like glass sponges but tiny algae!!

oh wowwww they’re stunning! gorgeous! i love them! beautiful! new favourite organism!

i am thrilled by the fact that plants get their chloroplasts from cyanobacteria. I did not know that. Everything relies on cyanobacteria?!?! Where do cyanobacteria get their chloroplasts from btw?

do the alveoli contain the rest of the cell or are they just empty? what’s in the alveoli? Does that just depend on what specific alveolate it is or do most alveoli have a similar function?

[shachaai]

WIP Wednesday with a twist!

Tell me your 5 favorite lines that you have written

I. Couldn't pick lines. So chunks? And more than five... orz

The Lindworm's Lullaby

“Tell me about your little one,” says Lecter anyway, and Will sighs. If the good doctor is so determined… “Lenore,” says Will. She whom the angels call - as she fusses back. “Lenore Graham. She’s six months old, and looks like the cross between a princess, a pixie, and a dumpling. I had her in March.”

Commencer par La Faim

Beverly falls in step with him, leaving the rest of the food in her bag. “I know, right? Good thing too - the morgue’s all corpses and fungi at the moment, which has pretty much put us all off everything Italian until at least next week, so we’re all temporarily embracing anti-mushroom pescetarianism.” Swallowing, Will squints at his burrito. Black beans. Seasoned rice. Cheese. Onions. Shredded lettuce. Sauce. “This doesn’t contain any fish though?” “Yeah, Jimmy’s been squeamish about the cafeteria seafood ever since a tuna sandwich from there gave him the runs.” Fair enough: Will usually doesn’t touch the fish options in the cafeteria either, although his avoidance is based on the fact he has plenty of - fresher - fish at home that he had caught himself. But if the cafeteria food made Jimmy ill… “You’re really not convincing me I shouldn’t’ve bought my own lunch.” “Too late, you started eating the bribe,” Beverly says ruthlessly, and snorts when Will only sighs pointedly down at his burrito. It’s ruined now. Sort of. Food is food, but now it’s food associated with Jimmy Price’s diarrhoea. “Oh, shut up and eat your fibre.”

---

“There are more species of fungi, bacteria and protozoa in a single scoop of soil than there are species of plants and vertebrate animals in the whole of North America. And yet, animals are more closely related to fungi than any other kingdom - more than 600 million years ago we shared a common ancestry. The branch of fungi that eventually led to animals evolved to capture nutrients by surrounding their food with cellular sacs: essentially primitive stomachs.” “We had stomachs before we had souls.” Abigail’s gentians have been shifted to the windowsill, the older bouquet moved to give way to the new. Will reaches out thoughtlessly, brushing light fingertips over bruised, tired petals. “Says something.” “Hunger is and always has been a primary drive throughout nature.” “And maybe fungi developed a more... efficient means of dealing with it than we have as a species.” Will catches a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and glances over - Lecter, coming over to join Will at the window, step by openly curious step. “You said it yourself: fungi predates us, and it’ll probably survive us as well, devouring that which kills us and feeding that which forgets us.” “Rising from the rot,” Lecter muses, “consumed by that which will also one day rot.” “An ancient cycle of growth and decay,” Will says, and drops his eyes to the other man’s collar when Lecter looks at him directly. [...] “Fungi are the grand recyclers of our planet,” Lecter says, hands tucked almost casually into his trouser pockets like he’d pry open Will’s skull with his nails if his hands aren’t otherwise occupied, “the interface organisms between life and death.” Transgressive in Will’s mind’s eye, three bodies intertwined in the greater body of the woods, neither fully flesh nor fungi. He frowns, and Lecter takes it as prompt to go on. “Mushrooms, as you asked about them, are merely the visible above-ground protrusions of sometimes vast underground networks of mycelium. They’re quite remarkable: mycelial nets have been shown to share the same architecture as that of astrocytic brain cells, both networks creating neurological pathways for distributing information as efficiently as possible.” Will parses that. And then drops his hand from the gentians. “...Mushrooms are sentient.” “Mycelial networks are arguably sentient. Of which mushrooms are a minuscule but visible part.” Lecter’s voice turns thoughtful. “An intricate web of connections.”

---

Lecter manages to condense so much judgemental distaste for the peanut butter cup melting onto Will’s lips in one look, he might as well package up the solid product and sell it as a flavour of its own. Will very pointedly shoves the rest of the candy into the hollow of his cheek before acknowledging the other man. “Dr. Lecter.” “Is that your lunch?” asks Lecter, continuing to radiate the disapproval of genteel schoolmarms everywhere: don't talk with your mouth full. “I have three more in my bag,” says Will, who had been planning to supplement the peanut butter cups with a hot sandwich from the cafeteria but now feels almost committed to seeing if he can survive the rest of the working day fuelled only with coffee, filched Halloween candy, and spite. “Along with two giant sour gummy worms and a packet of candy corn.” “Truly,” Lecter says dryly, “a balanced meal.”

---

Price sets down his fork to carefully unwrap the poor thing. The doughnut isn’t terrible appetising after the many hands it has passed through to arrive in Price’s; it’s been battered and half-flattened by careless fingers and thumbs, and a great deal of the neon orange frosting that had been decorating the top of it has now stuck to the purple tissue that should have protected it. “You don’t want it?” Price asks - somehow without the slightest trace of sarcasm. Will grimaces. “Alpha-gift,” he explains. “Ahhh,” says Price with all the sympathetic understanding of a fellow omega, and then immediately tears off a chunk of the doughnut to pop into his mouth. Guilt-free. “Who’s the unlucky suitor?” “Professor Ericson -” “And you’ve given it away?” Beverly announces herself by slamming her lunch tray down beside Will’s mostly-forgotten baked potato, looking down at Will semi-reproachfully. Of course she knows Will’s feelings about Ericson, but she can’t help the little instinctive flash of hurt she must feel as an alpha watching an omega discard their gift. “He’ll’ve put his feelings in that.” “I wasn’t encouraging him by eating it,” Will tells her, and Beverly huffs at him as she sits down. “You hear that?” Zeller asks Price, hot on Beverly’s heels. (Will idly wonders what must’ve held them up in the lunch queue.) “You’re eating a man’s feelings.” Price, already halfway through the doughnut, doesn’t look at all bothered. “You want some?” Zeller puts his tray down beside Price’s and tears off a piece of the doughnut to chew himself. “...His feelings taste like artificial colours and preservatives.”

---

“You look put-out, doctor,” Will teases him, touching his fingers to the crease of Hannibal’s elbow for a moment to guide Hannibal around a fallen log as they turn back towards the house. “Did you get something nasty on your shiny boots?” “Strangely enough, I do not recall a warning about there being something nasty out here to step in,” Hannibal sallies back, taking the opportunity to step closer to Will and push Winston out just in front of the two of them. The dog gives him a dirty look, but Hannibal ignores him and turns his next question to a murmur close by the shell of Will’s ear. “Was I led out here under false pretences?” Will, delightfully, shivers, and tries to mask it by lifting his hand to that same ear, leaning away from Hannibal to tuck his hair back behind it. “I would think someone who is at least reasonably intelligent should already know that woods, in general, tend to contain many nasty things, and so, when planning to go for a trek in them, should be prepared accordingly.” “Putting aside the implicit remark about my reasonable intelligence -” Hannibal says, smiling when Will begins to laugh beside him, “I would remind you that physical, mental, and emotional preparedness are all separate considerations. An individual may be fully prepared in advance for anything the elements may physically throw at him, but only understand the full mental and emotional ramifications after the fact.” The white fangs of Will’s grin flash in the dark. “You need to be prepared emotionally to get coyote shit on your boots?” “If I were actually attached to this pair, I might never recover.”

---

Cold, creamy blue sludge slides against Hannibal’s tongue, heavy with cheap syrup, processed sprinkles and cream. Lemon-raspberry-marshmallow sweet and tart. “...It tastes like the Lucky Charms leprechaun just died in my mouth.” Abigail chokes whilst swallowing her milkshake.

---

“No rest for the wicked,” Price sighs as yet another grim-faced technician trundles down the Pagoda stairs and past them to convene outside, and God, if that isn’t the motto of the day. “But better this weekend than next, I suppose. I’ve got a two-day meet-up with the family.” Zeller eyes him dubiously. “You think the Chesapeake Ripper wants to keep his schedule free for the Black Friday sales?” “If it’s the Ripper,” says Will. [...] “It’s the Ripper,” Zeller insists, just as Price chimes in with: “What, you don’t think serial killers like discounts? Who doesn’t like a bargain?”

---

“Speechless as well as breathless,” Will says with a frown. His mouth still tastes sour from vomit, even after sipping some water and grabbing some mints from the nearest vending machine. “But the heart is unaffected?” “Wholly intact and in place,” says Zeller. “Seems like the Ripper doesn’t go for love.” “Struck, but not in the heart. Huh.” Price ponders for a moment. “Maybe it’s just a puppy crush?” Will’s frown deepens. “If the Ripper wanted to show us he had a crush, he’d’ve literally filled this man’s stomach with butterflies. No, this is a more ardent declaration than that.” “You’re a picky date, Graham,” Beverly says with a sigh. “Psychopaths aren’t renowned for their emotional intelligence. Maybe this is a case of delayed realisation.” “Maybe the Ripper’s aromantic,” Price says, and shrugs when the rest of them turn to look at him. “I’m just putting it out there.” [...] Beverly tilts her head. “Really don’t think the general ace community would appreciate adding the Chesapeake Ripper to their ranks, but I’m not sure if that idea is better or worse than picturing the Ripper as a lovelorn dumbass with issues of romantic self-understanding.” “I, for one, am deeply comforted by the thought that the Chesapeake Ripper’s love-life sucks more than mine,” says Zeller. “Not trying to woo people with corpses probably helps,” Price chips in. Will moves away from the body. “In some cultures and during some periods of history, it was a perfectly valid - and encouraged - courting technique. What’s a better trophy than the body of your vanquished opponent?” “Can’t say a corpse would win my approval,” Price sniffs. “What’s wrong with a bottle of tequila and a few tubs of Ben & Jerrys?” “Half Baked?” Zeller asks. “Phish Food, please.”

---

Hannibal - surprisingly - helps, sitting in a chair at Will’s side and folding Will’s hand closest to him between both of his own. His thumb running soothingly back and forth over the slight swell of Will’s scent gland. “You’d be surprised at the sheer range of items I was called upon to remove from the rectal passages of patients in my days as a surgeon.” Will’s head thumps back hard onto the bed behind him, and he turns his incredulous eyes on Hannibal. “Cucumbers were quite a popular choice,” Hannibal blithely continues, completely ignoring Will’s nails digging pointedly into the back of his hand, “but the top 10 list of rectal foreign bodies I was called upon to remove, outside of broken sexual aids, also included shampoo bottles, bottles of alcohol, carved root vegetables, beaded necklaces and barbie dolls.” “We had a gentleman in here not too long back who’d shoved three baseballs up there,” Dominic says, casual as he pleases. (This is what Will gets for actually introducing Hannibal as ‘the father’ for this ultrasound rather than just ‘the support’.) “It was worse than the one time my eldest shoved his favourite Batman lego figure up his nose. I don’t envy his surgeon.” “The worst I had of the kind on my table was a young artist who had poured Plaster of Paris up her rectum,” Hannibal says, simply squeezing back on Will’s grip on his hand at Will’s muttered oh my God. “She wanted a mould of her colon, but only succeeded in glueing her sphincter - and the rest of her lower passage - shut.” “This is supposed to be a touching moment,” Will says - perhaps a little bit louder than necessary - when it looks like Dominic is about to continue the disturbingly focused surgical conversation. The technologist clicking away on the computer beside them barely manages to mask his laugh with a cough, smile hid against his raised arm. Hannibal lowers his face to Will’s shoulder - where Will can feel the nuisance grinning against his arm. “My apologies, Will. It seemed as though you would appreciate a distraction.”

---

“In my defence,” Beverly says, looking up from where she is blatantly googling encephalitis on her phone so she can frown melodramatically at, first, the dog plushie with a bandaged head that she had brought Will as a get well soon gift and, second, Will’s own head - which is very much bandage-free -, “you just said ‘head injury’ on the phone.” “Pretty sure I said that I had a problem in my brain,” says Will, absently rubbing one of the plushie’s (extremely) soft floppy ears between forefinger and thumb as he watches Beverly tap through to wikipedia, her chair pulled up beside his hospital bed. God, Will misses his dogs. “Yeah, but you’re known for being self-deprecating and shitheads are always saying you have a problem in the brain due to Lounds and her readers,” Beverly points out - reasonably, annoyingly enough. “When have I ever taken that seriously?” “I’m touched by your support,” Will says - mostly - without sarcasm. It feels good to have someone in his corner. It feels good to see a familiar friendly face when he’s stuck in hospital, the long hours stretching out before him otherwise fairly bleak. “And the dog.” “He has your eyes,” Beverly says, cheerfully ignoring the burst capillaries in Will’s own whites from excess vomiting to nod at the machine-embroidered big blue eyes get well soon puppy is sporting. “Definitely no chance of your skull getting sawn open for a matching bandage?” “Don’t think that’s in the official autoimmune encephalitis treatment plan, sorry.” Beverly just snorts, still shamelessly browsing wikipedia for information on Will’s condition. In front of him. “...Only you could develop encephalitis just to wriggle out of a social invite. Good ol’ migraines too plebeian for you, Graham? Even your encephalopathies are rarefied. They only described your version of the disease in 2007.” “As you can see,” Will says dryly, with a gesture down the length of himself, cannula, hospital bed and machines around him all, “I am deeply committed to being on-trend.”

---

“Basics first then,” says Abigail, resigning herself to her fate. “Got it. Slicing, dicing…” “Washing up,” adds Hannibal - solely to see the expression that immediately slides across his companion’s face: disgusted teenager. “You will, I’m sure, be glad to know that I have a dishwasher to assist with most of that task.” “‘Most of that task’?” Abigail inquires - and then answers herself before Hannibal can. “Of course you’ve got a bunch of stuff that’s super old or delicate or isn’t dishwasher-safe. Who needs fancy flourishes when you can plate dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets on Count Dracula’s own dishware?” About to pick up a potato of his own to join Abigail in peeling, Hannibal pauses. “...I’m sorry to disappoint you, but none of my china is Translyvanian.” “He probably imported.” “...A valid supposition,” Hannibal concedes, bending his head to his own task with a knife. “I shall be sure to examine my dishware for any vampiric provenance. The dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, however, are still out of the question.”

[REDACTED - if you recognise the fic, shhh]

"Do you take your coffee with arsenic or without?"

[Vampire/Werewolf Universe]

"You just... slept through the British Empire? Two World Wars? The atomic bomb?" "You seem to believe these are things a person would wish to be awake for?"

---

"Please put the clothes on that I brought you." "I see no reason." "Common courtesy?" When the plea seemed to fall on deaf ears - "I will sit here and make unflattering comments about your mummified dick until you oblige me."

---

"I have loved others, I think. But, for so long, did not allow myself to be in love. Love brings pain." --- "Love always means loss eventually, and I had had too much of that already."

"And Arthur changed your mind?""

"My mind. My heart. --- "You think I was happy about it either? I told you I love him, but, ai… you have met him."

"Now I believe you."

[ithidunes]

My webcomic chapter on the american chestnut! 🌰✨

Huge thanks for the research materials to the american chestnut foundation, which is one of the primary conservation groups in the united states working with such an amazing species. :)

(page text under readmore)

 CASTANEA DENTATA:

The American Chestnut was a large species of tree in the beech family, native to the eastern forests of North America. They bloomed long strings of catkins each summer, and dropped their leaves each fall- along with a hefty mast crop of burr-guarded nuts. Their flavor was sweeter and milder than other types of chestnut, and each year, they helped feed entire ecosystems beneath the branches.

The trees themselves were especially prolific, making up to roughly 30% of a forests' tree population throughout their range. In favorable conditions, the chestnut could reach over 100 feet tall, with trunks almost 10 feet in diameter. Some specimins could have contended among the tallest individual trees in the world.

The american chestnut was not alone, either- within its teperate family range, there exist 7 other species, though C. dentata was the largest. It was a tree of many uses.

Even aside from the sheer bulk of food value produced, the wood of the american chestnut was especially valuble. High tannin content in young trees especially accounted for a superior rot resistance and overall durability in certain types of construction.

Its leaves were also a reliable source of natural tannins for the leather industry, before the creation of synthetic tannins in the 1950s. The leaves of the american chestnut are also responsible for the latin name of the species- seemingly ironically, given the sharp thorns of the chestnut's protective burr. DENTATA refers to the elongated teeth on the leaf edges, which are more pronounced than in other chestnut species.

Given the propensity for their incredible nut production, one may find it odd to note that the chestnut tree rarely propagated itself from seed. Sprouts emerging from the base of older trees and stumps were vigorous growers, shooting up to fill the canopy gaps left behind by their ailing predecessors. Some nuts still sprouted- forgotten by the diverse selection of wildlife that consumed them- but their early growth was slower, and made up but a small percentage of young trees.

But still the crop was massive. Each mature tree  could produce over 6000 nuts per season, with an average lifespan of 150 years. Some individuals were recorded to be older- much older- clocking in at 400 years of age, and still producing nuts.

Lords of the ecosystem each in their own right- for those who lived in the eden beneath the canopy, this keystone species didn’t just add to the environment… it was the environment.

Summertime rolled in with an expanse of flowers, packed so densely in the canopy that  the sight from above was like an alabaster ocean. Catkins and pollen and leaves, dancing together in the sunbaked wind for miles and miles and miles…

Sights like these would be a rare one today- rare enough to be impossible - for the downfall of the American chestnut is a terrible irony. What a cruel joke it was that a wood known for rot resistance came to kneel down before the onslaught of a fungal blight.

Or rather: there was two in the span of a century. Ink Disease was the first, introduced from Europe in the early 19th century and afflicting the roots of hundreds of flora species across the continent. The nail in the chestnut coffin was the 2nd wave- another fungus known as Chestnut Blight, primarily affecting the trunks and stems of trees.

Cryphonectria parasitica is a sac fungi native to East & Southeast Asia, which coevolved with the Chinese and Japanese chestnut species. Much like the ink disease introduced from imported plant materials a century before, the blight was shipped in to North America on the barks of other chestnuts. Like father, like son: The first Japanese Chestnut arrived in 1876, commissioned by Samuel Browne Parsons Jr- son of the first man to import Japanese maples to north america.

Chinese chestnuts followed soon after, and starts of each were sold in a booming nursery industry that sent the trees by mail order all up and down the eastern forests. While any one of these numerous imports could have first brought the fungus, the collectors desire for these ‘exotic’ trees displayed a status, and that obsession spread the spores far and wide.

By the time the blight finally begun to bloom in 1904, the onset was so rapid, researchers believe that the fungus had already been deeply entrenched in the countryside for some time.

Truly, it was like a wildfire- its embers first spotted in the Bronx Zoo of New York, raging southward and overtaking the chestnut population in only a handful of decades. The only force faster was the lumber industry. Faced with such a devastating loss of capital value, efforts were made to save the valuable wood and uncountable stands of the american chestnut were felled before the fungus even touched them. Meanwhile, the survivors continued on...

Once entrenched, c. parasitica spends its life within the cambium layer of a tree, feeding on the active living cells and producing oxalic acid as a byproduct. The american chestnut is unable to metabolize this acid, and its buildup in their living tissues eventually kills the tree.

Or, at least, the fungus kills the part of the tree that remains above ground… but the chestnut, ever adapted to the true wildfire conditions of a terraformed North American forest, sprouts new shoots in perpetuity. This is not enough to shake off the blight entirely- as the fungus survives happily on dead wood and other trees as well- but a vast majority of living chestnut trees remain in a sort of limbo.

These once-giants exist as tiny growing shoots, surviving, not quite to breeding age… but among these survivors, a scant few individuals stand out from the rest. If they can overcome the blight just long enough to produce nuts, it indicates a genetic shift towards blight resistance. Ever so slightly, these trees are the key to the species future.

To unlock their potential, a chestnut sapling needs only 8 years before it goes to seed… and while the blight is here to stay, there are ways to delay the inevitable. Certain strains of Cryphonectria parasitica have been found with their own blight- a viral contagion- that slows the fungus down enough that the tree can survive infection.

Unfortunately, this virus is not so prolific as the blight was in the wild. To be an effective treatment for the blight, a chestnut must have each individual canker examined and the virus reapplied, year after year. It’s expensive in labor, and time.

But it IS possible.

Different people working together across the continent are already making headway on the chestnut’s revival, utilizing these methods and others. The forests of old may be changed forever: coextinction is irreversible, and habitat loss has fragmented the range these trees once grew.

This much is all true- but with some luck and a bit of support, there is still hope for this magnificent tree and the ecosystem it has sheltered. Better practices, better priorities, better care are on the horizon. People just have to know where to look for it.

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Gonna post this one every two hours again since that seemed to work well xD

[revenantstrampstamp]

Fun fact: the fungi found on Cleo are a gigantic version of a real-world species of fungi called Octopus Stinkhorn, also known as Devil’s Fingers. Being a stinkhorn, they smell like rotting flesh when in bloom. The perfect choice for the moon’s flora, since they appear to “hatch” from an egg sac as they bloom, and have been described as an “alien flower” by people not familiar with the species. They’re also invasive, which would explain why they’re still around, on a different planet, hundreds of years in the future.

Photos on the right credited to Dan Hoare.