Flora of Roshar

The flora of Roshar have adapted to the continent's harsh environmental conditions, such as highstorms, strong enough to uproot trees and uplift boulders, unleashed every few days within the world's unpredictable seasons.
Almost every plant has a mechanism by which it protects itself from highstorms, usually by becoming small and compact and gripping tightly to the surface it grows upon or developing a hardened shell. But when it's not hiding because it's disturbed by storms or animals, the plants almost all extend out and flower, and the desolate rocks come to life.
For example, grass on most of Roshar pulls in on itself when threatened, as do rockbud shells, and vine-like roots that seek out nearby water sources.
==Known Flora==
The flora of Roshar include the following:
Blackbane is one of Roshar's most deadly natural poisons. It has a narrow, dark green leaf with a point divided in three; a trefoil prong. It has to be dried out before reaching its potency.
Breachtree is a plant that produces cotton. This material is used to make warm clothes.
Brittles are shaped like flat stones for protection, but with planty stems that creep out and around the sides and up toward the sunlight.
Crustspine has branches like tubes of sandstone that crack and shake.
Dalewillow has long fronds that rise into the air like streamers, twisting and fluttering in the wind.
Dendrolith has gnarled and sturdy bark.
Firemoss, when rubbed, is said to make a person's mind more receptive to thoughts and ideas. Once a person grows callouses on his/her thumbs and fingertips, the rubbing can be euphoric.
Fourleaf sap is a salve that prevents infection.
Frillbloom has fanlike fronds: two wide, orange leaves, with spines on the tips that unfold like opening fists. When startled, they pull in frantically, like hands closing, vines trembling and curling.
Gulket sap, from the plant's leaves, when rubbed on sore muscles, makes them feel warm and cold at the same time.
Knobweed sap is used as a powerful antiseptic. It grows in many places on Roshar.
Longroot can be used to make stew and tastes faintly of minerals. Easily cultivated brown roots, they grow in cracks in stone where water collects after storms. They are sticky when sliced into and likely layered with crem on the outside.
Markel trees are coated with stone for bark, their branches thick as a man’s leg.
Pilevine produces a stringy red fruit.
Prickletac is a type of plant native to the Shattered Plains of Roshar.
Ridgebark is chewed to stay alert and awake longer than one should.
Shalebark constitutes a group of crusty, hard plants without true stalks or leaves that grow in gnarled patterns, most with tendrils like colorful hair that wave in the wind. Except for the tendrils, shalebark seems more rock than vegetation.
Snarlbrush is known to grow in dense thickets around the bases of stout markel trees, surviving storms by growing densely together there. When dried out, if water is thrown upon it, it grows instantly green, then fades back to tan as the water is absorbed, waiting for the storms to come.
Stagm is a brownish tuber that grows in puddles.
Stumpweight trees are knobby, about as tall as a man, and grow large, banner like leaves only on their leeward sides, running down the length of the tree like rungs on a ladder.
Truthberries are harmless, but the leaves and stalks of the plant, if burned, give off a smoke that makes people intoxicated and euphoric.
Vivim trees wind their branches together to create an almost impenetrable wall.
Winterwort is a bitter tasting plant, used to induce sleep.
===Rockbuds===
Rockbud is a term which refers to an entire family of plants that possess a sort of 'shell' into which they pull their leaves for protection against predators and the storms. Among them are the following:
*Fingermoss sprout like flowers. Their bright pink and purple tendrils are reminiscent of tentacles waving in the wind. The clumps only pull into their shells if someone taps the rock near them. Fingermoss resembles a vinebud with much smaller leaves and no stem, but many more tendrils.
* Lavis Polyp is a common variety of grainbud, cultivated for the grain they contain.
* Prickletac (or Twisted Spine) is a colony plant made up of tiny barnacles that cling together, like coral polyps. They are described as needly, stone-limbed little shrubs.
* Vinebud resembles a turnip.
==Notes==
* In late 2008, Ben McSweeney, Brandon's design mandate, referred to underwater life as a basis for Roshar's plants and animals.
* There is an extensive article about the flora of Roshar on tor.com here.
==References==
Category:Flora of Roshar