Art:Iron Coconut Palm

This article is an entry in the Piratical Guide to Oceanic Life muse game.

Iron Coconut Palm

Cocos Ferrous

This strange vegetation can only be found growing on the backs of Giant Leviathans. They resemble ordinary coconut palms in all respects save the steel-blue tinting of their fronds.

When a leviathan submerges, the Iron Coconut loses all of its fronds and sticks out from the back of the creature like a giant toothpick. It is during this time that the plant releases its pollen into the water. Carried far on the ocean currents, the pollen will eventually encounter another leviathan just surfacing. Pollination then follows.

During the leviathan's long periods of surface slumber, each palm will produce between ten and twenty coconuts. Dropped one at a time from the tree, they roll off the back of the leviathan and drop into the water. On ocassion, the falling coconut will land on top of a Great Lurf, momentarily knocking the fragile creature unconscious. The nut then slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean until it is consumed by the only creature capable of chewing the hard as nails hide of the nut: the Gunwhale. It has been suggested that during times of starvation, the gunwhale will swallow the coconut whole for use as natural ammunition. Indeed, many theorize that the Iron coconut is the natural food and ammo source of the gunwhale, but not enough evidence has been collected to support the theory.

This creature originally created by Orsino^[1].