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Witch rope; tallest of the rope trees so far
Topic Started: Mar 28 2011, 10:01 AM (788 Views)
StinglessBee
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Name: Witch Rope
Time: late Carboniferous
Size: up to 5m tall, but often has to stop growing at 2m (see below)
Diet: photosynthetic
Habitat: Rope tree vineland across Pangaea

The witch rope is by far the tallest of all Carboniferous rope trees: growing tall out of the low under-story created by their shorter relatives. They are able to grow tall due to a bizarre form of symbiosis with a fungus. Originally, as the largest rope trees grew taller, the strands that were closest to the ground would grow in thickness: each individual strand generating a pseudo-bark of dead cells around living material. In the middle Carboniferous, a type of fungus developed to feed first on the dead cells and then the sugars generated by the rope tree. Inadvertently, the threads that formed the fungi actually strengthened the rope tree further, allowing it to grow taller than any other rope tree. As a result, they could gain more sugars from photosynthesis and get a higher point from which to spread their spores. Meanwhile, their pseudo-bark grew thicker to accommodate the fungus better and a variety of other organisms began to take root in this pseudo-bark.

Whilst the rope tree in itself can survive without the fungus (though without a fungus the rope tree will only grow to a measly 2m), the fungus has become completely dependent on a rope tree host. The fungus eventually produces a fruiting body upon the rope tree (giving the rope tree its name). The spores from that body will eventually settle on a rope tree: whilst a witch rope is more suitable on account of producing larger amounts of pseudo-bark, similar species of rope tree are suitable hosts. However, these other rope trees are simply not adapted to using the fungi for added stability as the witch rope is, and as such won’t grow taller than normal.

Similar species: the witch rope is the tallest out of a small genus of rope trees notable for the production of the pseudo-bark. However, most of these species only grow between 2-3m; the witch rope being the exception.
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