Flopleaves

Flopleaves are small neotenous and atavistic descendants of the Yokto Stemleaf. Unlike other stemleaves, which are sessile their entire lives and only retain muscles in an early juvenile stage, Flopleaves never lose their muscles and act in complete defiance of their seemingly certain future as ordinary plant clones. These little planimals are motile, moving either by flopping or rolling along on the ground or slowly ascending rocks and larger flora with their root-covered “feet”. Though their flopping seems as chaotic as that of a Terran fish taken out of water, its main use is to jump over obstacles and it better resembles inching or bounding when on flat solid ground. Their roots have been modified greatly, being short and having pads at the end covered in fractal “hairs” which let them cling to rocks and flora similar to a gecko’s toe pads. To maintain a faunal lifestyle on land, they can secrete digestive enzymes from their roots, allowing them to liquify and absorb detritus as sustenance. As such, they are technically decomposers. This change, though seemingly absurd, actually originated as an adaptation to obtain more nitrogen, as this vital resource is often hogged by the cosmopolitan crystal flora. Despite their humble origins as weird island flora, the Flopleaves have spread globally by sheer force of wind distribution, the ability for their embryos to not freeze to death over polar flyways, and breeding too much to get eaten to extinction.

Apart from the changes related to a faunal lifestyle, the reproduction of Flopleaves has been altered. They are alternating hermaphrodites, meaning they cyclically switch between male and female. Their reproductive surface has moved inwards, forming a better-protected surface on the underside of the leaves close to where they split from the stem. When in the presence of many females, a male will disintegrate his haploid reproductive filaments into male spores, and the females will roll or shuffle around with their leaves raised to collect them in modified stomata. The male leaves shortly afterwards to morph into a female in peace, while the females will disperse once they are sufficiently fertilized. Instead of zygotes living free, they are attached to their mothers for some portion of their early development, building up stores of a starch-like substance while the mother forms a cellulose casing around them--a seed-like egg. The mother will then climb to a high place, such as on top of a rock or large flora, and stretch her leaves to the sky, letting wind--or fauna, in some cases--carry the seed-like eggs away. The mother is instantly transformed into a male, as the connective filaments that previously held onto the seed-like eggs are haploid and function as male gametes when disintegrated. It will morph into a female again after shedding its gametes, which it will do in the presence of lots of males as well for the express purpose of becoming female. Pressures related to breeding and changing sex are regulated entirely by pheromones, which are released from the reproductive surface and picked up by their stomata.

The development of the seed-like egg has vastly increased the reproductive success of Flopleaves, as they can stay dormant in unfavorable conditions and are far more resistant to threats such as flood, frost, and the stomping feet of large fauna than naked embryos. The way they hatch externally resembles the sprouting of a seed plant. The seedling spends the earliest portion of its life hardly moving from where it sprouted, more like a plant, but this is because of its small size making it difficult to move over obstacles more than anything. At this stage, it absorbs nutrients from the ground, just like ordinary flora. However, the moment it is able--which can be earlier in some environments than in others, even within a single species, depending on what obstacles are around--it starts twisting and “hopping” around until it is free from the dirt. Different species of Flopleaf reach maturity at different speeds, but none take longer than a month. They breed rapidly, as they are rather fragile and easy to prey on; when not controlled by predators or competition, they can sometimes form the dominant ground cover in a region despite being fauna, as has already occurred in some biomes such as the alpine tundras.

Though Flopleaves do not have eyes, they are regardless able to sense some of their environment based on light levels. Their distant barely-multicellular ancestors gained photosynthesis by engulfing an Adoralgae, and a heavily simplified chloroplast-like descendant of that cell still exists within the cells of Flopleaves. One of the characteristics of Adoralgae is its light-sensing organelles, originally used to navigate towards sunlight; the Flopleaves have exapted this to get a map of light intensity across their entire bodies. While this does not do anything close to forming an image, it allows them to detect motion and leap away or into the dark at any sign of danger. They use their light intensity map to help them navigate to high places to release their seed-like eggs, which is especially important in forested habitats.

There are many, many species of Flopleaf--at least 1,000 extant at a given time, if not more. Apart from the typical regional adaptations for flora, such as being more stout in cold or dry habitats and lighter in color towards the equator, they also notably converged on gliding variants several times independently through wing-like leaves. This trait is a common feature of woodland and rainforest species, which are often highly arboreal but prone to falling. Species in more open habitats tend to be more sluggish, as they are constantly bathed in sunlight, mainly moving whenever they are hungry; the exception is desert species, which are often on the move constantly simply because the detritus they need to consume to maintain their motile lifestyle is generally less common in habitats which also naturally have less flora. Beach-dwelling species also exist, which often wander along the shore where dead flora commonly washes up and where free-floating aquatic flora may become stranded. Though not particularly aquatic, Flopleaves which live along coasts and riparian biomes are surprisingly good swimmers despite their strange body plan and are often able to escape the water by flapping their leaves.

In stretches of land where Flopleaves form the dominant ground cover, going out for a walk can be a strange experience. Appearing like plants, as one comes closer they will suddenly reveal their faunal nature and start leaping out of the way, leaving a bare soil path ahead so that none will be crushed underfoot. If one looks down at the exposed patch of soil, they will notice not a single dead leaf or twig among the dirt--all macroscopic detritus being cleared away by the hungry planimals almost as soon as it appears. If a Flopleaf fails to leap away and is crushed, one may even turn back to see the others flocking to its body, never passing up a free meal. Though Flopleaf fields are not an especially rare phenomenon, without other flora present they don’t last forever; once all the detritus has been eaten, they lose their food source and must either leave or starve.