Violetmellow

Violetmellows cover the bottom of slow-moving rivers, deeper streams, and oxbow lakes in abundance. Violetmellows grow very well in brackish water, to the point they will weaken and die if it grows too close to the coast. Violetmellows don't need very much oxygen to live, and it will grow more sparsely under conditions any darker than light shade. (e.g., next to a single Crystal Pagoda) In the winter, the cold and winter sun causes their metabolisms to slow down, and they do not grow back as fast when damaged.

Violetmellows have two parts: leaves and rhizoids. The exact shape of its frond-like "leaves" varies slightly between more strip-like and wavier forms. While still ribbonlike, its leaves are thicker than its ancestor's own photosynthetic ribbons. Violetmellows hold onto the substrate using pale rhizoids, like those of mosses, which accumulate small amounts of sugars. Violetmellows draw upon these sugars during cold, cloudy days when they cannot photosynthesize. Violetmellows are a little more differentiated than its ancestor. It cannot live as 100 micrometer-long cells; its smallest functional unit is 1 cm long and must contain some rhizoids. Violetmellows are covered in a thin, powdery wax that helps it with osmoregulation (regulating water and salts), which helps them endure low tide in salt marshes.

As the Violetmellow has a better grip on the soil than its ancestor, it can survive slightly rougher waters than its ancestor. Still, its grip is weak, so when the river floods it often washes up en masse on the shores of rivers, where their decay suffuses the air with a flowery scent and feeds Crystal Pagodas. Fragments of the flora, tossed about in rough waters, quickly sprout, and the meadow grows back just a thick as before as quickly as one month later.

Its nutritional value is slightly lower than that of sugar kelp, an Earth plant, making it the most nutritious and digestible flora in its habitat. Violetmellows have a mild, sweet flavor with floral notes: its components include beta-sitosterol and lauric acids. Oddly enough, it also smells of violets, due to the chemical ionone.