Giant Kraltree

The Giant Kraltree is, as its name suggests, a huge version of the Kraltree. Like a terran oak, it casts lots of shade and can form canopies in the forested parts of its range to prevent competing flora from growing around it. Its stalk is thick with chitinous secondary growth, helping to support its immense size. It has many branches, all with whorls of 8 crystals on their upper segments. Like its ancestor, each of its many, many foliar crystals produce spore sacs containing thick-coated spores which are impervious to drying out. These burst simultaneously with those of others in the same population during the spring, and fertilized spores germinate in the ground and produce a mycelial network; once enough energy is obtained from detritivory, the sapling will begin to grow. Because of just how many spore sacs it has bursting all at once, the air can be so filled with spores in the spring that it can in rare cases become difficult to breathe. It is unbranched for much of its life, reaching about 6 meters in height before branches start to sprout from its stalk.