Visualizing Zalanthan Trees

[nauta]

What do Zalanthan trees look like?  I don't know.  But here are some common desert trees, and a stab at matching them with their Zalanthan equivalents (all text is from HELP TREES and the individual help files on the trees).  

Are there any trees not on this list?

I'll be updating this as I get time.


Agafari Tree (acacia salicina).  These trees are short, squat light colored hardwoods, with a thick grey bark and knotted, twisted trunks; their leaves are very thin and long, like limber needles, forming a canopy arrangement similar to Earth's weeping willow but with fewer leaves.


Baobab Tree (adansonia gradidieri). These trees are thick, dark maroon hardwoods, with dark crimson-and-grey bark; the trunk is somewhat bent, often branching into smaller limbs halfway up or less; leaves are similar to agafari, but purple in color, and a little wider.

Note: I'm not sure if RL baobabs fit the description, especially the colours and also the "branching into smaller limbs halfway up or less" description.  In fact, RL baobabs fit the description of Cunyatis better.


Cunyati Tree (dracaena cinnabari). This tree is barely the size of a normal human, and its trunk is thickly ridged with greyish green bark. No branches show themselves except at the very top, where they eagerly push outwards, long fronds with clusters of thick shelled nuts at their base.

Cylini Tree. About the width of a half-giant's wrist at its base, a thin cylini sapling with peeling, greyish-green bark erupts from the ground. Its slender branches are quite long, and end in twigs which respectively grow into jagged, tear-shaped leaves which look to be quite sharp. The tree maintains a fragile appearance, but seems to hold its ground to the occasional gust of wind which sweeps through the area.

Cynipri Tree  These trees are shorter cousins of the cylini, with a broader trunk with is more knotted and slightly darker, with an ugly olive-purple bark; leaves, as with cylini, are spear-shaped and serrated (can be dangerous) but are slightly longer and slimmer.

Jallal Tree.  The jallal tree is a thick tree with paper-like brown bark. It has leaves that are dark-greenish yellow on the end of thin branches. It is known primarily for the fruit it bears, the jallal fruit.

Maar Tree.  This appears to be a maar tree, by its twisted, dark yellow appearance and stubby size. At no more than knee height its trunk divides into a tangled mess of branches, each fringed with fern-like maroon leaves.

Pymlithe Tree. A stand of blossoms, dusty pink and pale yellow, wavers here, the dusty foliage blotched with the effects of little water, but still valiantly maintaining its unceasing struggle to survive.

Stemwood.  Straight, thin treelike plants with a thin olive drab bark/skin; no evident leafage at all, and the stem does not divide into branches but remains a single stalk; at the tip of the plant, the bark is thin and membranous. This tip is where the stemwood collects water from the air through osmosis and conducts its photosynthesis, supplemented by the moisture its roots can obtain.

Whipleaf.  Much like a shorter version of cynipri trees, these plants have flexible trunks covered with a reddish brown bark. The palm sized leaves are spear shaped and sharply serrated, each twice as long as the main stem, tearing at the ground around the stand with each motion of the wind.

Yypr Tree. Yypr trees form dense clumps that are usually around water. They can grow to twenty cords tall with their straight, dark brown barked trunks. They have green, needle-like leaves. They are also known to bend in the wind and retain that shape. These trees are very rare in either of the cities.

Real-life candidates?

[Eilwen]

Maar is maybe a bit like Harry Lauder's Walking Stick, aka Corylus avellana 'Contorta'. I have one of these in front of my house. It looks like something from a wicked wood. I wish I had a whole hedge of them.