Pziqq trees


 * What could be more beautiful than a grove of pziqq trees? -- Crambethous the Poet

Pziqq is a member of the Does-It-Make-a-Sound Family. It is also the only member of the Vertical order which has Specious genies of all three designations: (yes!), (no.) or (maybe?). Many pieces of furniture that are supposed to be made of tablankel wood are actually made of pziqq wood. Tablankel green hues are very difficult to match precisely. The bluish hues native to pziqq are likely to show through over time, and the trained eye will also readily note the different grain structure between the two.

The Subtle Tree Fight was a phase of the Conflict That Is Not Happening between the Endlessly Rising Staircase Movement and the Carsokians that ran from -97 to -94 EC and centered on the exploitation rights of pziqq trees in the Sarfelogian Altitude District Territory (SADT), a region on the upper slopes of the Sarfelogian Mountains. Pziqq trees were the greatest victims of the Subtle Tree Fight. The mining and countermining that took place disturbed the soils and killed many of the trees in the region.

Uses of the Pziqq tree

 * The bark of the pziqq tree is one of the key components in the distillation of the Aurophylaxis narcotic. Careful harvesting of the bark can be done without killing the tree but, unfortunately, too often the alchemists simply strip a tree of large swathes of the bark, which fatally wound the specimen.


 * Though it is not a good choice, some fielding huts are built with pziqq wood. The storied Hut of Sarfl on Po Mountain is also built of pziqq.


 * Prospectors study pziqq trees in order to determine the locations of useful mineral lodes in the ground beneath. While the specific methods used by these prospectors are closely guarded secrets, most of them involve burning leaves or small branches.

Varieties of Pziqq trees

 * Basic Pziqq [(no.)]


 * Pziqq/Zhur hybrid [Zeez fruitii (no.)] - also known as the zhipee bush; produces stable, shippable fruit, unlike the true Zhur Fruit.


 * Mountain Pziqq [Frolixom happi (no.)] - variety found in Sarfelogian Mountains and other positive attitude regions.


 * Scrub Pziqq [Grr snarl (no.)] - a smaller, surly, more gnarled-appearing type, similar to the Mountain Pziqq found in the Jorvyll mountains.


 * Pziqq Wormwood - "some of the best wormwood originates from the Pziqq trees on Kluvat Peak in the south-western edge of Jorvyll."


 * Pziqq Ghoulwood - pziqq is moderately susceptible to ghoulwood conversion. It is much more amenable to becoming ghoulwood than resistant trees such as Hungfold, but is not as susceptible as other types, such as sphoxolis (patricularly drowned sphoxolis).


 * Oracle Pziqq [Aleatoria uwinuluse (yes!)] - the branches of this pziqq are used by fortune-tellers and seers to make predictions about the future, which are sometimes accurate.


 * Desert Pziqq [Rustica scratchi (maybe?)] - similar to scrub pziqq, and mostly found in the Cactus forests.


 * Well-Worn Pziqq [Gust ventral (no.)] - a variety of pziqq with wildly sprawling branches and shaggy leaves. These are most often found on coastal bluffs and other windy locations.

Citations: Kmuppens' Taxonomy, Subtle Tree Fight, Tablankel.

--Brother Arfrus 11:06, 9 Sep 2005 (EDT)