Cabbage Shootroot

Shootroot cabbage. A robust bottom-dwelling organism anatomically similar to a plastic starfish, or to an opened variety of Earth's extinct blastoids.

Animal anatomy

The cabbage shootroot's upwards-facing mouth is surrounded by outstretched arms. These arms are hard, tightly grouped, partly calcified, and covered in a tough biopolymer characteristic of other shootroots (tentative name: polyproteovinyl). These arms produce the cabbage-leaf texture that gives the shootroot its name.

Seabed burrowing

A second set of arms uses ribbons of the same tough biopolymer to dig into the seabed, stirring up sediment and expanding cracks in rock. This is a difficult and metabolically expensive process, but it is a niche with little competition.

Symbiote kiss

The cabbage shootroot does not use its mouth to eat, or its hard leaflike arms to feed. These surfaces seem to be reserved for a symbiotic partner. The cabbage shootroot uses its mouth to transfer nutrients gathered by its roots to the symbiote, and to receive a trickle of food or chemistry in exchange.

Circular nerve cord

Like all shootroots, the cabbage shootroot is notable for its expression of a circular nerve cord.

Assessment

do not sit. You may receive nutrients.