Minidaggers

These small crystal flora have spread as a result of rapid radiation from highly photosynthetic descendants of brown daggergrass. As crystal flora are already quite hardy, they were able to spread across many environments, with some even inhabiting the more semi-arid areas of the Glicker-Barlowe Hot Desert. Due to their rapid reproduction, many of the less extremophilic species produce large patches of crystals. At a distance, these patches resemble shiny fields of ‘grass’, though their inorganic shape and rigid chitin armor couldn’t make this species any more disparate from terran grass.

Due to their higher reliance on photosynthesis, they no longer benefit very much from killing large fauna. This combined with their sheer number and pointiness has made deadly poison useless to them. Most species have reduced their poison to the equivalent of a bee sting, with some species losing their poison altogether. The only fauna this would kill would not be of any benefit to the flora. While many species have red or yellow pigment on them, there is a selective pressure against the species that resemble soilpods in Glicker.

Due to their habit of forming large, dense populations in ideal conditions, many do not have very strong defenses against other orpiments. While they are able to deter some of the more basal orpiment species, their weak defenses make them the perfect shelter for a sprouting trifold bristlestalk.