Botanists
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# Overview
Botanists grew to inhabit the 3rd realm, and they buckled the trend of animals taking the sentient role in an ecosystem. In fact, Botanists are plants; rather than eating, they employ Alucinaratrophy, absorbing Alucinara to convert carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen.
They did little to adapt to their surroundings, apart from the development of toxins and thorns to deter herbivores who may attempt to eat them. Rather, the bulk of their evolution came from the bombardment of Alucinara they recieved during their development, speeding up the process and applying drastic physiological changes.
The botanists took on a radial body plan, with 6 to 8 thorned roots at the bottom of their bodies. Once reaching maturity, these roots would leave the ground and serve as legs, so that the botanists cold place their seeds far away. In addition, they featured a skirt of very many leaves specialised for Alucinaratrophy and four eyes on stalks around a long tendril that laid retracted in a mouth-like pouch on a long thorned neck at the top of the body. The tendril would come out when object manipulation was needed, or when it was time to release seeds, which would also be stored in the pouch.
The botanists had a semi-sophisticated society, mirroring insects such as ants or termites, where all will serve a purpose in the colony, communicating with the use of pheromones released from the mouth-pouch. Colonies would be planted by a group of mature botanists, plunging their tendrils into the soil to lay their seeds deep in the ground, which wouch eventually grow into a patch and go on to plant more and more colonies.