Iridion Trees

Iridion Trees
Information
Other Names:	Wyrdant Nightshade, Fey Trees
Found In:	West of Valgarde
Type:	Tree, Fungus
Distinguishing Features:	Pale, covered in luminous Feyglow fungi, pale night blooming flowers
Uses:	Illuminating the forest, Flowers are toxic to humans

Growth Cycle

The Iridion Tree growth is speculated to have been begun by ancient dragons, planted there and then they introduced a symbiotic Feyglow fungi in order to illuminate the forest without using fire and burning the plant life down. Though there is nothing that is inherently human about the plants, they grow close to humanoid shapes. These trees grow with vast overstretching canopies and nightly pale flowers bloom that are toxic to humans.

The sap of the tree provides an ideal substrate for colonies of Feyglow spores. Their white mycelium takes over the tree and hardens, giving it a birch-like appearance. Small glowing buds then form all around the tree, lighting the space around it in ghostly blue. When the buds mature, they burst, releasing glowing spores that travel through the vale, carried by breezes. Another 'pollinator' of the spores of these trees are a subspecies of the Dartscales called Glowscales. These creatures live among the trees and use them as home where they create their nests because the fungus attracts the insects they use as a food source. These creatures have also taken on some of the nature of the luminescence.

Cultivation

These trees are not normally able to be cultivated in any other soil, somehow the combination of fungus and tree have become inseparable and in any other soil than that which they locally grow one or the other die. It is perhaps a combination of soil and the animal life that helps to spread the pollen, making the groves in which they flourish the only location that they are able to exist.

Uses

There is no known use for the tree, the Feyglow fungus only glows when growing on the bark of the tree and can not be used as a light source away from the trees, if it is scraped from the bar it will only remain illuminated for a few moments before dying. Though the flowers of the tree are toxic to humans they do not live long enough from the trees. Once the flowers expire and shrivel the toxin becomes harmless, only within the first couple of hours of plucking the flower will it harm a person and unless ingested in quantity the toxin isn't fatal, merely renders the person gravely ill until the toxin has worked its way out of their body.