Stages 1-3 of a alien plant concept, part of a homework assignment to create an alien. I'll paste the text below about its world and background.


The Alien World

Our planet, lets call it Silph, orbits an F class star at a distance about where Saturn would be in our own system and the size slighter smaller than Venus. The axis of the planet is relatively straight, thus seasons are hardly distinctive, they distinguishment is night and day. Do to the sun’s class and the planet’s distance, days can be temperately warm and nights can be rather frigid. Such contrasts cause continuous turbulent winds around the planet. The planet’s terrain is mainly rocky surface carved with canyons and ravines where the surface water lies; otherwise it runs through underground networks. The atmosphere is somewhat hazy due to dust caught in the wind, and most precipitation occurs towards the horizon of the night and day lines.

The Alien

I could have gone a bit more about the vegetation of the planet, but that’s where my alien species comes into play. My idea is a plant species that goes through metamorphic stages in its life span. Stage one is basically from the “mother” plant it starts as a nut like pod, sort like a walnut in form but with a more insect like shell inside the canyons where the main water source is. Stage two, it develops tendrils from opposite ends of the shell, two of which almost like a worm contract in order to allow movement on the ground or to scale walls. The other two tendrils are more like what you would see on a coiled fern. Stage three, the pod “crawls” up from the canyons and has made it way to the “surface”. Here the coiled tendrils mature and unfurl, revealing a leaf structure that seems like a sail. Due to the high velocity winds and weight of the alien, it is picked up in the current and now sails the wind “seas”. During the day it “flies” and absorbs sunlight and at night it’s coils contract to its pod and the other tendrils absorb moisture on the surface. The next stage is when after some time, the plant begins to outgrow its pod and begins splitting at the seams. At this stage it’ll tend to seek out a canyon or ravine ledge below the surface to find a stable location. Upon finding a suitable location the two locomotive tendrils merge and grow into a long root that will drop to the water at the bottom of the canyon as more fibrous roots sprout to anchor it. After this prepubescent stage, the coil tendrils grow out as “branches”, the sails break up into smaller forms and become two differentiated sides. On one side germinal spores grow on the other is a receptor. The winds of the planet carry the spores from plant to plant and fertilize on the receptor size. The fertilized leaf retracts to a bud like form and this is where the pod/seed grows. Thus the cycle begins again.
Other aspects to consider is threat from other animals on the surface, the main occurrence would be in the later hours of the day as the pods have landed. This is the peak time of animals attempting to feast on the fleshy tendrils as they are absorbing moisture. The pod will retract completely in order to save itself, but then there are a few animals with teeth tough enough to go threw the shell.