The Character Consultancy

How to Create an Alien Ecosystem: Plant Edition

Part 2: Creating Potential For Our Species

In the last part of this series we established our own set of Divisions as the basis for our alien plant ecosystem. Now we need to divide the plant Orders between them, to give ourselves more inspiration. For reference my Divisions are:

Waterflowers
Waterflower plants grow in both salt and fresh water. Flowers, fruit, and seeds are often submerged and are adapted for this. Fruits are common, diverse in appearance. Produce nectar in forms that allow it to be collected underwater.

Rugplants
Tiny plants underfoot that come in a dazzling array of miniscule leaf shapes, some of which tessellate and make the ground look visually stunning. They never produce fruit or seeds.

Bonded plants
Bonded plants fill the oceans, fresh water lakes, and rivers of Kaleida. They work hard for the ecosystem, doing a solid portion of the work of oxygenating the water to make it habitable for animals, and providing opportunities for symbiosis with many fungi, protozoa, and zooplankton. The occasional species goes rogue and produces toxins. They are often single-celled, never produce fruit or seeds, and instead either sub-divide or produce spores.

Eccentrics
Few plants can survive in tough conditions as well as eccentrics. They stand resolute and proud in extreme dry – hot and cold – and on mountainsides, torn at every day by feral winds. Few other plants can grow near them, partly due to their sheer hardiness and partly thanks to the eccentrics’ ability to discourage them. Even animals don’t seem to enjoy the habitats that eccentric forests create as much as non-eccentric ones, but a few species do make a living in such places. Their cones provide animals with food, as do a few small berries.

Lace-roots
Many lace-roots stand tall on land, but their main contribution to the world of Kaleida is to hold the very soil together and to help keep it hydrated by holding onto water like a sponge. They do this by growing extensive and very fine root systems. This assures the stability of the soil. Seedless and fruitless, they instead release spores.

Witch herbs
Witch herbs perform the same basic functions as any other plant: oxygenation of the air and provision of habitat and food for animals. Aside from this, they tend to be attractive to look at for any creature capable of aesthetic appreciation of plants - especially their sporophytes. They prefer to grow in bodies of water or in consistently wet environments.

Dividing the Orders

Like I said in part 1, the plant Orders are far less easy to distinguish cleanly than animal Orders: many Orders are filled with very diverse species, and many of the differences that do exist within an Order are not easily observable to non-botanists. I’ve researched and made notes on each Order as well as I can but some may still feel quite sparse.

I’m going to take green algae, red algae, brown algae, and fire algae (the four algae Orders I think are interesting and useful enough to use in this process), and put those under my Flowering Plants Class.

So let’s get started with classification!

Here is a list of all the Flowering Plant Orders. I’ve crossed out any that have too little detail for us to work with easily.

Order	Description	Best Known Species
Acorales	Prefer wetlands; flowers have a spadix (a distinctive long, thick central part)	Sweet flags
Alismatales	Stem is corm or rhizome. Grow in aquatic and marine areas. Some are completely submerged.	Seagrasses, Titan arum, Swiss cheese plant
Amborella	No distinct description
Parsley (Apiales)	No distinct description	Carrots, celery, parsley, ivy
Aquifoliales	No distinct description	Holly
Palm (Arecales)	No distinct description	Palm tree, coconut, acai
Asparagales	Tight rosettes of leaves are common	Onion, garlic, leek, asparagus, saffron croci, aloe vera, iris, orchids, daffodils, bluebell, spider plant
Daisy (Asterales)	No distinct description	Sunflower, daisy, lettuce, southernwood, wormwood, ecinacea, thistle
Austrobaileyales	Grow as trees, shrubs, and lianas	Lianas, star anise
Berberidopsidales	Woody evergreens
Boraginales	No distinct description
Cabbage (Brassicales)		Cabbages, mustards, papaya, capers, nasturtiums, radish, beetroot
Bruniales	No distinct description
Buxales	Shrubs and trees. Good source of ornamental plants and trees. Male flowers are distinct from one female	Common box
Canellales	No distinct description
Caryophyllales	Many are succulent.	Cacti, carnations, spinach, beets, Venus fly traps, rhubarb, sundews, purslane
Celastrales	No distinct description
Ceratophyllaceae	Mainly found in ponds, marshes, and small streams	Coontails and hornworts
Chloranthaceae	Woody or 'weak' woody shrubs and trees. Fragrant. Small, petal-less flowers.
Commelinales	Grow via rhizomes
Cornales	Flowers have four separate petals, fruits are fleshy, most plants are woody
Crossosomatales	Tube-shaped flowers
Cucurbitales	Mostly tropical	Gourds, squashes, pumpkins, melons, cucumber
Dilleniales	Tropical and subtropical
Dioscoreales	Forest floor plants	Yams, source of steroids
Dipsacales	No distinct description	Honeysuckle, elder, valerian
Ericales	Showy flowers, often 5-petalled	Tea, blueberry, brazil nut, azalea, kiwi fruit, rhodedendron, heather
Escalloniaceae	No distinct description
Euphorbiales	No distinct description	Rubber tree
Bean (Fabales)	Plants produce pods.	Legumes, kudzu, four-leaf clover, wisteria, acacia
Fagales	Contains some of the best known trees in the world. No distinct description	Birch, beech, walnut
Garryales	Evergreen woody plants
Gentianales	No distinct description	Coffee
Geraniales	5-petalled flowers
Gunnerales	No distinct description	Gunnera
Huerteales	No distinct description
Icacinales	No distinct description
Mint (Lamiales)	No distinct description	Lavender, lilac, olive, jasmine, ash tree, teak, snapdragon, sesame, sage, mint, basil, rosemary, blue jacaranda
Laurales	Tropical and subtropical, mostly trees and shrubs	Cinnamon, avocado
Liliales	Mostly perennial with corms and rhizomes. Flowers are ornamental	Lily, tulip
Magnoliales	Trees and shrubs with simple leaves	Custard apples, magnolia, nutmeg, dandelion, dragon’s blood tree, oak, heliconia
Malpighiales	One of the largest orders. Toothed leaves.	Willow, violet, poinsietta, coca plant, passionfruit
Malvaceae	No distinct description	Balsa, cacao, kola, baobab, cotton, rafflesia flower, passion flower
Metteniusaceae	No distinct description
Myrtle (Myrtales)	These plants prefer a warmer climate	Pomegranates, Fuschia, eucalyptus tree
Nymphaeales	Aquatic plants with rhizomes, large flowers, and broad leaves	Water lilies, giant water lily
Oxalidales	No distinct description	Pitcher plant, wood sorrel
Pandanales	Mainly tropical plants, big and small
Paracryphiaceae	No distinct description
Petrosaviaceae	Prefers high elevation habitats
Picramniaceae	Bark tastes bitter
Pepper (Piperales)	Tiny, densely packed flowers with no petals	Black pepper
Grass (Poales)	Small flowers, single seed leaf, rely on wind pollination	Grasses, wheat, bullrush, bamboo, bromeliad
Proteales	No distinct description
Ranunculales	No distinct description	Buttercup, poppy, bleeding heart
Rose (Rosales)	Petals are separate from one another, few other details about the characteristics of the flowers	Rose, strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, apple, pear, plum, peach, apricot, almond, fig, nettle, hop, cannabis, ficus
Santalales	All Families are parasitic to some degree
Sapindales	Woody everything – trees, shrubs, and climbers	Citrus, maple, mango, cashew, frankinsense, myrrh, mahogany, horse chestnut (conkers), poison ivy (not a true ivy), poison oak (not a true oak)
Saxifragales	No distinct description	Peony
Solanales	No distinct description	Aubergine/eggplant, potato, tomato, belladonna, chilli pepper, tobacco, sweet potato, morning glory
Trochodendraceae	Flowers have no petals and no scent
Vahlia	No distinct description
Vitaceae	Woody, mostly tendril-bearing vines. Some plants are parasitic	Grapes
Zingiberales	Well developed stamens	Bird of paradise flower, bananas, ginger, cardamom, turmeric
Zygophyllales	No distinct description

Now to divide the remaining Orders equally between my different Divisions!

Waterflowers

Order	Description	Best Known Species
Parsley (Apiales)	No distinct description	Carrots, celery, parsley, ivy
Cabbage (Brassicales)	No distinct description	Cabbages, mustards, papaya, capers, nasturtiums, radish, beetroot
Crossosomatales	Tube-shaped flowers
Bean (Fabales)	Plants produce pods	Legumes, kudzu, four-leaf clover, wisteria, acacia
Gunnerales	No distinct description	Gunnera
Mint (Lamiales)	No distinct description	Lavender, lilac, olive, jasmine, ash tree, teak, snapdragon, sesame, sage, mint, basil, rosemary, blue jacaranda
Myrtle (Myrtales)	These plants prefer a warmer climate	Pomegranates, Fuschia, eucalyptus tree
Rose (Rosales)	Petals are separate from one another, few other details about the characteristics of the flowers	Rose, strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, apple, pear, plum, peach, apricot, almond, fig, nettle, hop, cannabis, ficus

Rugplants

Order	Description	Best Known Species
Aquifoliales	No distinct description	Holly
Buxales	Shrubs and trees. Good source of ornamental plants and trees. Male flowers are distinct from one female	Common box
Cucurbitales	Mostly tropical	Gourds, squashes, pumpkins, melons, cucumber
Fagales	Contains some of the best known trees in the world. No distinct description	Birch, beech, walnut
Laurales	Tropical and subtropical, mostly trees and shrubs	Cinnamon, avocado
Malvaceae	No distinct description	Balsa, cacao, kola, baobab, cotton, rafflesia flower, passion flower
Nymphaeales	Aquatic plants with rhizomes, large flowers, and broad leaves	Water lily, giant water lily
Santalales	All Families are parasitic to some degree	Mistletoe
Vitaceae	Woody, mostly tendril-bearing vines. Some plants are parasitic	Grape

Bonded Plants

Order	Description	Best Known Species
Palm (Arecales)	No distinct description	Palm tree, coconut, acai
Caryophyllales	Many are succulent	Cacti, carnations, spinach, beets, Venus fly traps, rhubarb, sundews, purslane
Dioscoreales	Forest floor plants	Yams, source of steroids
Liliales	Mostly perennial with corms and rhizomes. Flowers are ornamental	Lily, tulip
Oxalidales	No distinct description	Pitcher plant, wood sorrel
Ranunculales	No distinct description	Buttercup, poppy, bleeding heart
Sapindales	Woody everything – trees, shrubs, and climbers	Citrus, maple, mango, cashew, frankinsense, myrrh, mahogany, horse chestnut (conkers), poison ivy (not a true ivy), poison oak (not a true oak)
Zingiberales	Well developed stamens	Bird of paradise flower, bananas, ginger, cardamom, turmeric

Eccentrics

Order	Description	Best Known Species
Asparagales	Tight rosettes of leaves are common	Onion, garlic, leek, asparagus, saffron croci, aloe vera, iris, orchids, daffodils, bluebell, spider plant
Ceratophyllaceae	Mainly found in ponds, marshes, and small streams	Coontails and hornworts
Dipsacales	No distinct description	Honeysuckle, elder, valerian
Gentianales	No distinct description	Coffee
Magnoliales	Trees and shrubs with simple leaves	Custard apples, magnolia, nutmeg, dandelion, dragon’s blood tree, oak, heliconia
Pepper (Piperales)	Tiny, densely packed flowers with no petals	Black pepper
Saxifragales	No distinct description	Peony
Trochodendraceae	Flowers have no petals and no scent

Lace-roots

Order	Description	Best Known Species
Acorales	Prefer wetlands; flowers have a spadix (a distinctive long, thick central part)	Sweet flags
Daisy (Asterales)	No distinct description	Sunflower, daisy, lettuce, southernwood, wormwood, ecinacea, thistle
Chloranthaceae	Woody or 'weak' woody shrubs and trees. Fragrant. Small, petal-less flowers.
Ericales	Showy flowers, often 5-petalled	Tea, blueberry, brazil nut, azalea, kiwi fruit, rhodedendron, heather
Geraniales	5-petalled flowers
Malpighiales	One of the largest orders. Toothed leaves.	Willow, violet, poinsietta, coca plant, passionfruit
Grass (Poales)	Small flowers, single seed leaf, rely on wind pollination	Grasses, wheat, bullrush, bamboo, bromeliad
Solanales	No distinct description	Aubergine/eggplant, potato, tomato, belladonna, chilli pepper, tobacco, sweet potato, morning glory

Witch Herbs

Order	Description	Best Known Species
Green algae (Chlorophyta)	Mostly live in fresh water. Can live on land, including deserts and hypersaline environments. Can engage in symbiotic relationships with other life-forms. Useful source of food for many aquatic animals and for oxygenation of fresh water.	Sea lettuce, watermelon snow
Red algae (Rhodophyta)	Prefer salt water to fresh water. No terrestrial species, probably due to an evolutionary bottleneck. Play a major role in oxygenation of the ocean. Useful source of food for animals.	Irish moss, dulse, nori
Brown algae (Paeophyta)	Oxygenates water and provides food and shelter for many animals	Giant kelp, many other brown seaweeds
Fire algae (Pyrrophyta)	Single-celled. Some species are bioluminescent. Some species create red tides. Can also contain neurotoxins and deplete oxygen in the water, which can kill fish.	Sea of Stars

plus...

Order	Description	Best Known Species
Alismatales	Stem is corm or rhizome. Grow in aquatic and marine areas. Some are completely submerged.	Seagrasses, Titan arum, Swiss cheese plant
Austrobaileyales	Grow as trees, shrubs, and lianas	Lianas, star anise
Cornales	Flowers have four separate petals, fruits are fleshy, most plants are woody
Euphorbiales	No distinct description	Rubber tree

Making Initial Notes on Orders

Next we need to look at each Order and cross-reference it with the Division we have placed it under, and write any detail we can about what that Order would probably be like in terms of its appearance and behaviour. By the time we're done, our Orders should look different from their real-world counterparts and we'll have the beginnings of our alien plants.

Below are my initial notes for my own alien plants. I’ve included my Division notes for reference as they will help to guide us. Wherever there are no physical descriptions of an Order for me to follow I've written "No distinct description yet". We can fill in some details for those at a later stage. If you're following along with this process, good luck - this part is fun but can take a while!

Waterflowers

Waterflower plants grow in both salt and fresh water. Flowers, fruit, and seeds are often submerged and are adapted for this. Fruits are common, diverse in appearance. Produce nectar in forms that allow it to be collected underwater.

Parsleys (Apiales)
No distinct description yet.

Cabbages (Brassicales)
No distinct description yet.

Crossosomatales
These plants produce long, tube or trumpet-shaped flowers.

Beans (Fabales)
Most plants in this Order produce submerged pods of various sizes.

Gunnera
The leaves on this are huge!

Mints (Lamiales)
No distinct description yet.

Myrtles (Myrtales)
These plants are found in warmer waters, both salt and fresh.

Roses (Rosales)
The flowers of this Order have petals that grow separate from one another.

Rugplants

Tiny plants underfoot that come in a dazzling array of miniscule leaf shapes, some of which tessellate and make the ground look visually stunning. They never produce fruit or seeds.

Aquifoliales
No distinct description yet.

Buxales
These feel less like a bed of springy leaves and more like a woody pincushion. Their sporophytes look distinctive.

Melons (Cucurbitales)
These rugplants tend to creep. Particularly large sporophytes.

Fagales
Woody structures within these rugplants make them feel strange underfoot. Small animals and insects can find more space underneath these as the woody stems create more space for them.

Laurales
I’m starting to get a lot of these ‘woody’ ones which I'll look into more later down the line. Some species have aromatic bark that you can stimulate by walking on it.

Malvaceae
No distinct description yet.

Nymphaeales
Rugplants in this group stretch out over fresh water. Care must be taken not to walk on it as it can give if you are heavy enough (and if you’re a sophisticated enough being to be able to read this, you almost certainly are).

Santalales
These rugplants grow on other plants, and some grow on animals, and feed off them.

Vitaceae
This Order is also woody, and creeps. Some plants are parasitic, grow woody stems, and creep. These can make for a nasty infestation.

Bonded Plants

Bonded plants fill the oceans, fresh water lakes, and rivers of Kaleida. They work hard for the ecosystem, doing a solid portion of the work of oxygenating the water to make it habitable for animals, and providing opportunities for symbiosis with many fungi, protozoa, and zooplankton. The occasional species goes rogue and produces toxins. They are often single-celled, never produce fruit or seeds, and instead either sub-divide or produce spores.

Palm (Arecales)
No distinct description yet.

Caryophyllales
An Order of plants that swell with water to help them hold other, small life-forms. Sometimes they hold these for symbiotic relationships, sometimes for prey. Others grow as single-celled organisms but the cells are particularly huge - a lake or river full of them looks like a pool of green or red water-filled balloons.

Dioscoreales
While other Orders in this Division live in bodies of water, this one reaches out onto land, using wet ground. This includes the permanently damp parts of forest floors, where it forms a film, sludge, or as dainty tendrils.

Liliales
Plants in this Order have a tendency to grow corms underground, branch out using rhizomes, and breach the surface in unexpected places as short, lush growth. They use water tables to do this.

Oxalidales
Some members of this Order fill themselves with water which they keep as separate bodies of water from the water around them, and sometimes adjust to digest insects, or create micro-environments for unique fauna with which they share a symbiotic relationship.

Ranunculales
No distinct description yet.

Sapindales
A plant that grows upwards, and therefore climbs everything from trees to cliffs.

Zingiberales
The sporophytes of this Order are well-developed.

Eccentrics

Few plants can survive in tough conditions as well as eccentrics. They stand resolute and proud in extreme dry environments – hot and cold – and on mountainsides, torn at every day by feral winds. Few other plants can grow near them, partly due to their sheer hardiness and partly thanks to the eccentrics’ ability to discourage them. Even animals don’t seem to enjoy the habitats that eccentric forests create as much as non-eccentric ones, but a few species do make a living in such places. Their cones provide animals with food, as do a few small berries.

Asparaglaes
Produces tight rosettes of needles that stick up out of the ground, with one or more cones at the centre.

Ceratophyllaceae
Species in this Order favour bodies of water for extending their roots. They have been known to produce dams and change the course of entire bodies of water.

Dipsacales
No distinct description yet.

Gentianales
No distinct description yet.

Magnoliales
Plants in this order are mostly trees and shrubs with short, stubby needles.

Pepper (Piperales)
The cones of these plants are generally tiny and densely packed.

Saxifragales
The cones of these plants are large and extravagant.

Trochodendraceae
The cones of the plants in this order have no scales.

Lace-roots

Many lace-roots stand tall on land, but their main contribution to the world of Kaleida is to hold the very soil together and to help keep it hydrated by holding onto water like a sponge. They do this by growing extensive and very fine root systems. This assures the stability of the soil. Seedless and fruitless, they instead release spores.

Acorales
These plants are semi-aquatic and play a big role in keeping the edges of lakes and rivers intact. They make spadixes from which they release spores.

Daisy (Asterales)
No distinct description yet.

Chloranthaceae
These plants are fragrant, and walking on them releases more of their scent. The overall plants are generally soft, as are the roots.

Ericales
These plants produce strobili, which give some river banks a bobbly look.

Geraniales
Many species have 5-parted strobili.

Malpighiales
The leaves of this Order are toothed, but tiny.

Grass (Poales)
Common plants that spread well thanks to winds spreading their spores. [Author: I might want to move this Order elsewhere as it essentially still sounds like grass, just with spores instead of pollen.]

Solanales
No distinct description yet.

Witch herbs

Witch herbs perform the same basic functions as any other plant: oxygenation of the air and provision of habitat and food for animals. Aside from this, they tend to be attractive to look at for any creature capable of aesthetic appreciation of plants - especially their sporophytes. They prefer to grow in bodies of water or in consistently wet environments.

Green Algae
Small plants that grow, either free-floating or moored to rocks or debris in fresh water. Can grow into a thick sludge on water. Their sporophytes are small and delicate, and usually grow on the surface in great masses. Can generate large patches of these on snow and in parts of deserts to create very delicate, silky meadows.

Red Algae
Dainty yet robust plants that grow throughout Kaleida but do especially well in salt water and areas heavy in sodium. Most are various shades of red.

Brown Algae
[Author: This one has no differences to its real-world counterpart.]

Fire Algae
Fire algae extends its roots over river banks, the shores of lakes, and other wet environments to create veined visual effects. These roots produce a toxin that discourages other plants from growing, and care must be taken not to touch the roots, otherwise you may be poisoned.

Alismatales
These plants grow rhizomes that create entire environments for freshwater and saltwater animals. One species grows an obscenely huge sporophyte.

Austrobaileyales
The plants of this Order grows as aquatic trees, shrubs, and lianas.

Cornales
[Author: I'm not so sure there's anything distinctive I can use for this one.]

Euphorbiales
Some species produce latex.

So far there’s little to say about many of these plant Orders, but I’ve written all I can! In the next part we will add detail to our Orders.

Credits

Title image by cordiceps and used with their kind permission.