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Description
Today I bring something different from my usual work, a spec evo commission by . He has created an alternative version of Earth called "Great Lakes Earth" with great level of detail, describing lots of animal and plant groups and how they differ from what we can find on our planet. You can find his work at Speculative Evolution forum: specevo.jcink.net/index.php?sh…

I'll make a short series of pieces focused on the creatures of this world, and today I bring here a couple of plants that caught my attention. On the left side you can find the massive Yggdrasil megamangrove, a conifer of the genus Taxodium that evolved to reach gigantic sizes (up o 150m high) and to tolerate salt water. In Great Lakes Earth (from here on GLE) the world's tropical and temperate coasts are populated by many species of megamangroves, being Yggdrasil the largest of them all. A complex system of roots and prop roots that extend underwater support its massive weight. In its branches and roots a wide variety of fauna can be found, like the Midgard serpent, a large species of eel that can reach 14m in length

On the right side a red coral tree can be seen. While true corals are extinct in GLE (due to a combination of climate changes and competition from other reef builders), in dry land a wide variety of plants have evolved to resemble our corals in shape, color or other characteristics. These "coral plants" can be trees, shrubs, herbs, etc. I opted to depict a tree that resembles a staghorn coral, with its coloration based on the mediterranean red coral. Polyp-like flowers emerge from the trunk and the branches directly from the bark. Some of these coral plants have very venomous flowers, which are eaten by some species of moth caterpillars; apart from becoming very toxic, these insects are very colorful, in both larva and adult stages

Description
Today I bring something different from my usual work, a spec evo commission by . He has created an alternative version of Earth called "Great Lakes Earth" with great level of detail, describing lots of animal and plant groups and how they differ from what we can find on our planet. You can find his work at Speculative Evolution forum: specevo.jcink.net/index.php?sh…

I'll make a short series of pieces focused on the creatures of this world, and today I bring here a couple of plants that caught my attention. On the left side you can find the massive Yggdrasil megamangrove, a conifer of the genus Taxodium that evolved to reach gigantic sizes (up o 150m high) and to tolerate salt water. In Great Lakes Earth (from here on GLE) the world's tropical and temperate coasts are populated by many species of megamangroves, being Yggdrasil the largest of them all. A complex system of roots and prop roots that extend underwater support its massive weight. In its branches and roots a wide variety of fauna can be found, like the Midgard serpent, a large species of eel that can reach 14m in length

On the right side a red coral tree can be seen. While true corals are extinct in GLE (due to a combination of climate changes and competition from other reef builders), in dry land a wide variety of plants have evolved to resemble our corals in shape, color or other characteristics. These "coral plants" can be trees, shrubs, herbs, etc. I opted to depict a tree that resembles a staghorn coral, with its coloration based on the mediterranean red coral. Polyp-like flowers emerge from the trunk and the branches directly from the bark. Some of these coral plants have very venomous flowers, which are eaten by some species of moth caterpillars; apart from becoming very toxic, these insects are very colorful, in both larva and adult stages