SEEDLER - TIMELINE #19270037

(Timeline Tuesday #36)

Seedlers are a species of large, sentient flora standing approximately four or five feet tall once matured. They are thin creatures with light green bodies and four distinct legs, which they use to traverse great distances. The head of a seedler consists of a flat white circle from which several petals grow, encircling the creature’s face. These petals can range in color, from blue to pink to red, but the most common hue is a sunny yellow.  This yellow coloration makes up eighty percent of all seedlers.

Seedlers sports large orange eyes and a small flat nose upon their faces. However, they do not have mouths. This is because seedlers do not require food to sustain themselves, gaining all the energy they need through photosynthesis. Sunlight is very important to seedlers, forcing them to only visit timelines with plenty of rays to soak up. If one of these creatures goes four days without direct sunlight it will likely perish, withering away.

Seedlers communicate through pheromones, using a system of airborne particles to deliver complex messages to their herds across enormous distances. Attempts to translate these communications have been fruitless, as the biology of seedlers is different than anything seen on this timeline. It is believed they use shifting patterns in their emissions, releasing several pheromone types in a row to construct what we might consider a sentence or paragraph.

The most unique feature of a seedler is their long, needle-like feet. These hard, sharp points serve three purposes. Most apparent is the way they carry seedlers from place to place. However, these spikes also serve as a reproductive tool for the living plants. The spines are hollow, and when a seedler is ready to produce offspring they will push forth a seed with every step, burying them deep in the soil. After a season of gestation, young seedlers will begin to sprout.

Lastly, these spiked feet can be uses to defend against predators. Seedlers are naturally quite docile, but will defend themselves when provoked. Their flesh is sometimes sought by vegetarian hunters looking for a meat replacement, believing seedlers are fair-game based on their technicaly floral nature.