From a balcony of the tall stone tower housing the core families of the Weathermaker Choth, Nat Falkayn sees:
paved courtyard;
rambling wooden buildings;
grazing meat animals;
Terrestrial grass, clover, oak and pine;
Ythrian starbell, wry, braidbark and copperwood;
Avalonian susin (red), chasuble bushes (green), janie (blue) and draculas (leathery);
golden sun, Laura;
distant ocean;
sinking moon, Morgana.
He hears the wind murmuring, feels its coolness and smells leaves, distances and Thuriak.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Those mentions of stone structures and paved courtyards made me think with some bemusement that there must have been some Ythrian MASONS and quarry workers, types of work which I don't think would come that easily to Ythrians.
Ad astra! Sean
Clover is a legume -- very fundamental to mammalian ecosystems. They evolved about 60 million years ago, shortly after the K/T boundary, and their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen was crucial to subsequent evolution.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I think I first came across that idea, the importance of nitrogen in Earth's ecology, in Anderson's TWILIGHT WORLD.
Ad astra! Sean
Tho' strictly speaking it's the symbiotic bacteria on the roots of the legumes that fix nitrogen.
Still, this vastly increased the rate of nitrogen fixation, of biologically accessible nitrogen in the ecosystem.
That made possible the explosive evolution of grasses, for example; though the clade is older than the K/T, its massive presence subsequently needed more nitrogen.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Something which I would not be surprised was discussed by Hal Clement in his novel THE NITROGEN FIX, which I read many years ago. Clement was one of Anderson's inspirations!
Ad astra! Sean
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