Notchtower

Like its ancestor, this large flora is the direct result of competition for sunlight with other flora. While it is different from its ancestor in many ways, it’s still similar enough physically and genetically to be within the same genus.

The notchtower usually inhabits humid areas with lots of water such as beaches, jungles, and tropical wetlands and oases. As with its ancestors, a stable rainy climate is pretty much necessary for their reproduction, so during a drought they won’t waste energy on it. They typically form broad and expansive colonies under favorable conditions, but these colonies aren’t extremely dense. Their many thin leaves and long flexible trunks help them to withstand strong windstorms and hurricanes, with their long roots anchoring them deep into the soil.

Physiologically, the skynotch is similar to other members of its clade, albeit with many things multiplied and scaled up. It has greatly increased its number of leaves to allow for a much higher area for photosynthesis without sacrificing its ability to survive storms. These leaves grow in a continuous whorling pattern, with older individuals typically having more leaves. Notchtowers have many notches running up their trunk, all of which overlap. As a result, not every notch is essential to the notctower's survival. In the rare event that a notch is broken off, it can regenerate. However, this process is somewhat slow, taking almost a whole year. This happens most often at the base of the trunk, so the notches there overlap a lot more than they do on the rest of the tree. The female gamete bulbs have become very numerous and hair-like, dotting most of the reproductive stalk. Notchtowers typically live for 60-80 years, but can live for much longer if extraordinarily healthy.

While their large size already makes them less prone to palmcap infestations, notchtowers will create self-destruct hormones when the tissues above the leaves have been penetrated by the corrosive enzymes of a palmcap. These hormones signal the roots to cease all functions, killing the flora within days and starving the parasite.