Avalonian Organisms

In "The Problem of Pain," Ythrian and human explorers on the planet provisionally named Gray see large floating masses of vegetation grazed by monstrous marine creatures and probably supporting many lesser species. Olga Berg names the vegetation atlantis weed. On an island in an archipelago where some of the explorers have been shipwrecked, a surgeon tree cuts a wing from the Ythrian, Enherrian, and Olga dies when poisoned by vapors from the hell shrub.

In "Wingless," Nat Falkayn rescues Keshchyi, a young Ythrian caught in atlantis weed on the planet now named Avalon.

In The People Of The Wind, Tabitha Falkayn takes Philippe Rochefort to see atlantis weed, each mass of which supports an entire ecology. She hopes that they will also see a grazing kraken. Tabitha tells Rochefort that, on the archipelago island where he had crash landed, he might have been injured or killed by a surgeon tree and also that there were hell shrubs in a hollow nearby. 

Thus, the novel incorporates features from the two short stories.