Not Thriving: Fantastic Flora

Only four examples from two different shows and six wicks - seems like it was pushed onto the site without going through YKTTW. Now it seems to me like there could be a good trope here and I'm going to add some examples that I know of myself, but I don't know about this one - it may need to be sent back to YKTTW.

I think it's a very good trope. It's probably a Super-Trope to several other Plant Tropes. Potentially:

• Alien Kudzu
• Festering Fungus (sometimes)
• Fungus Humongous
• Man-Eating Plant
• Plant Aliens / Planimal / Plant Person (debatably)
• When Trees Attack
• Wise Tree
• Grows on Trees

edited 30th Sep '12 12:52:31 AM by AnotherDuck

Yeah, I like the basic idea myself, it's just that there's almost nothing there at the moment.

It needs some work. For exemple how is flora defined? Anything that use CO 2 and releases o2 via photosynthesis? That excludes any fungi(Fungus Humongous, Festering Fungus(except the algae part of some lichens)). Strictly speaking

Anything that looks like, behaves like, or is refered as Plantae (and/or Fungi)?

It's pretty common to have fungi as a substitute autotroph in world-building, so they should probably be included as flora. (I've been considering a YKTTW for background plants with an obviously unearthly appearance, used in a similar manner to Alien Sea and Alien Sky - like the ever-popular eyeball plant; Fungus Humongous, Meat Moss, and Grows on Trees would be subtropes, and if we keep going in this direction this would be a supertrope.)

edited 30th Sep '12 10:10:04 PM by Noaqiyeum

In fiction, flora is stuff you find in nature that's not animals, rocks, or water.

edited 30th Sep '12 11:38:59 PM by AnotherDuck

What I'm asking for is a clearer definition, where do we draw the line? Would Mushroom Man be included?

And what do we really know about the diffent kinds of Little Green Men, Blob Monster, or Eldritch Abomination?

It depends on if we should include only those that are always this, or those that are sometimes this.

Mushroom and plant creatures are sometimes more creatures that happen to resemble plants, rather than actually being plants. That's why I put a "debatably" to the list in those cases.

With individual examples, I would draw the line between a sentient humanoid creature who walks around but still take nourishment from sunlight, water, and the earth (and not actually swallowing any), and someone who's made out of plant matter but still eats like a person. Even flytraps and other carnivorous plants still get a lot of nourishment like other plants, with insects being a supplement, and they still don't have animal organs to process the meat.

edited 1st Oct '12 3:54:24 AM by AnotherDuck

Hmmm... Okay, so what about purps?

I would say generally that in the absence of explicitly being described as a plant or animal, if it's basically sessile it should be treated as flora, and if not it counts as fauna. :P There's no reason to jump to conclusions about blob monsters or aliens or nightmares from beyond the veil unless they are specifically stated to be plant-like.

edited 2nd Oct '12 1:06:47 PM by Noaqiyeum

Like creepers. They're bushy creatures of some explosive kind.

There are a lot of potential examples here. Basically, any fictional plant invented for speculative fiction — that's super-broad, and shows up all the time.

And the World Tree trope looks like a subtrope to this one.

This is a high level supertrope. It should include Mushroom Man, Plant Person, Plant Alien, Planimal, etc. all as subtropes and they should be listed as such. Yes, it's very very broad. Supertropes should be. What this needs is a full listing of subtropes and then links on all those pages as their supertrope.

Should this be an index? If so, all we need to do is make it both an index and a list of examples.

Making it an index might help, especially with identifying subtropes. Remember, as a high level supertrope, most examples will fit into subtropes.

Alright. Let's get started. I'll add a few things to the index and we can all add other stuff that I miss.

On Speculative Fiction Tropes, would it fit as a trope, or a category? Several subtropes are on the long list.

I also added Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables and Magic Mushroom to the list on this page.

I think it could fit as a category.

It's planted there now.

I see what you did there.

What needs to be done?

I did start Fantastic Flora's indexing. You can add the other tropes there if you haven't already.

But if you've already done that, feel free to holler for an end to this thread (need to clean up this forum).

You already added almost all of the ones I suggested anyway.

Anyway, I think it might be a good idea to get a clock on this thread (hollering for that), and see if anyone figures out if more can be done, but otherwise I think we've done what we can.

Clock is set.

Make sure you crosswick everything.

Is this done, then? Seems good to me. If so, then let's close it up and send it to the morgue, and free up some space for other repairs.