Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 15:50:29 -0800 (PST)
From: Jerry Friedman 
Subject: Re: (urth) eating trees


--- maa32  wrote:
> This is primarly for Blattid ( or whoever asked me about "sentience" in 
> conjunction with the trees).In response to proof that the trees eat
> things: I 
> can't find it right now (my notes are not with me) but there is a scene
> in On 
> Blue's Water where Horn is talking about green and says that the trees
> eat 
> other trees, then he says the strangling female lianas are the scariest
> things 
> on Green.  It's in the first book.  I'll keep looking for the exact
> quote.  
> I'm sure some other people remember it.

This proves that the trees on Green are herbivorous, not carnivorous.

...

> Horn also comments about ways of killing the inhumu in Chapter 4: the
> Tale of 
> Pajarocu, and he states that they decay very rapidly: "These people,
> like 
> people everywhere here, seem to fear than an inhumu  may live on even
> with its 
> head severed.  That is not the case, of course; but I cannot help
> wondering 
> how the superstition originated and became o widespread.  Certainly
> inhumi 
> have no bones as we understand them.  POSSIBLY their skeletons are
> cartilage, 
> as those of some sea-creatures are.  On Green, Geier maintained that the
> 
> inhumi are akin to slugs and leeches.  No one, I believe, took him
> seriously; 
> yet it is certain that once dead they decay very quickly, though they
> are 
> difficult to kill and can survive for weeks and even months without the
> blood 
> that is their ONLY food."(62)

Interesting.  Horn himself told us about Patera Quetzal's eating or 
drinking beef tea.  Was it just for comfort, not nutrition?

> Doesn't this schema of the inhumu seem 
> derivative of a hardy vegetable system: survive wihtout all their limbs,
> need 
> food every couple of months, may have a keratin cell wall, and decay
> very 
> quickly?

There's nothing about suriving without all of their limbs unless
you believe that Silkhorn is mistaken.  Also, keratin is an animal
protein--the one fingernails, hair, and Horn are made of, but not
the one cartilage is made of--and quite different from cellulose,
the carbohydrate that plants' cell walls are made of.

> Perhaps at one time the early inhumu could survive if you cut off 
> their heads: and plants can certainly do that if their upper extremities
> are 
> removed.  Another argument for low-g is that the inhumu have weak, weak
> legs.

I believe flying animals often have weaker legs than non-flying
animals.
...

Jerry Friedman

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