"Tall, finely fronded blue-green stalks - plants of that varied and ubiquituous family which the colonists misnamed 'grass'..."
-Poul Anderson, "My Own, My Native Land" IN Anderson, New America (New York, 1982), pp. 9-50 AT p. 29.
Anderson also lists Rustumite trees:
goldwood
soartop
fakepine
gnome
Exercise: compare these with Avalonian trees whose names and descriptions can be sought here.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Because, as we know by now, grass and its equivalents on other planets, is crucially important. So a careful SF writer like Poul Anderson gives us analogs of grass on the planets he creates.
Sean
Though -Earth- didn't have an equivalent of grass before grass, and grass didn't become very important until after the dinosaurian period.
Before then, ground-cover was much more discontinuous and patchy, and erosion was quicker; there just weren't many plants with high-silica leaves, as you can see from herbivore teeth patterns and digestive systems.
The evolution of modern types of grass revolutionized ecosystems all over the planet, causing mass extinctions and other upheavals.
Vs. a vs. the "Time Patrol" series, I've often felt that the best way to disrupt history would be to "biobomb" the planet with grass seed in the remote past. That would completely disrupt the course of evolution.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I should have remembered the different kinds of plants which existed BEFORE grass. I fear I never thought before of how much difference the fewness of plants with high silica leaves would make for the digestion and teeth patterns of herbivores.
Then we should be glad time travel does not seem to be at all likely!
Sean
Sean: there are equivalents in our history. Introduced grasses (and trees and animals and birds) took over much of New Zealand, for example, spreading explosively. In large parts of both main islands you can stand in what looks like a "natural" landscape and not see a single thing that isn't introduced, right down to the honeybees. The whole flora and fauna was Europeanized in a historical eyeblink.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That does amaze me, that New Zealand, not so long ago, was still "primitive."
Sean
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