List of plants of the Edge Chronicles
This article lists the vast array of fictional plant life found in the Edge Chronicles, a series of young adult books set in a fantasy world created by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. For information on the books themselves, please see the Edge Chronicles main article.
For further information about the fictional world of the Edge, please see the similar article, Animals of the Edge Chronicles.
B
- Barleyrice - Possibly similar to barley or rice, used commonly as a foodcrop.
- Bloodoak - Bloodoak is a carnivorous plant that grows to the size of a tree. It resembles a large tree with a gaping maw at its summit filled with many wooden "teeth". It can voluntarily swallow or spit out its prey. It ejects bones, but draws blood to its roots, where young female termagant trogs drink it as part of their "Blooding Ceremony" which turns them termagent. Bloodoak wood is very strong when dead, but extremely flexible when alive, adding to the sinister animal-like aspect. When burned, it screams violently. Bloodoak wood is the most buoyant wood on the Edge, and therefore highly desired for building sky-ships. Bloodoaks co-operate with the similarly mobile tarry vines to draw in and consume prey. When felling the Bloodoak, the felling party must either "engage" the tarry vine or use bait to distract it (a dishonourable approach) Tem Barkwater was used as tarry vine bait, before being found by Quint. Steg Jambles is caught and eaten in Clash of the Sky Galleons. Twig is almost devoured by a bloodoak in Beyond the Deepwoods.
- Blue Pumpkin - Apart from being a blue colour, Blue pumpkins are not mentioned to be any different from normal Earth pumpkins.
- Bristleweed - It is found in purple clumps among the bones lying scattered around bloodoaks (see "bloodoak" above). It is used to make a tea sold to Twig in "Midnight Over Sanctaphrax" in the Great Shryke Slave Market by a gabtroll that told him it would help him find himself.
- Butterblooms - Possibly similar to buttercups or other meadow flowers. They grow in large groups along paths or in hammelhorn grazing pastures.
C
- Copperwood - Like the ironwood tree and the leadwood tree, the copperwood is a non-buoyant tree from the Deepwoods (probably weighing as much as copper).
D
- Dellberry - A red berry used in jelly, as this quote from Stormchaser clearly shows: The sun - large and red and wobbling like an immense bowl of dellberry jelly - had just risen above the horizon. It is unknown whether the berries grow on trees or bushes.
- Darkelm - Probably similar to an elm. The yellow oil that can be extracted from this tree can be used as a salve on prowlgrins' feet to keep them in good condition. The prowlgrins find the oil irresistible, and even wild ones can often be found scratching at its bark.
- Darkroot - Possibly a sort of tuber plant, similar to carrots or parsnips. Can be used to make a poultice to help cure wounds.
G
- Glimmer-onions - Similar to onions, commonly used as a foodcrop.
- Glade-Onions - Similar to onions, one imagines they grow only in glades and pastures.
H
- Heartapple - A fruit that causes near instantaneous death when as little as a single drop is ingested.
- Hyleberry - A fruit with healing properties, used often by woodtrolls.
- Hairy charlock - Herb with calming properties. The gabtroll in the Great Shryke Slave Market advised Cowlquape Pentepraxis to drink a tea made from hairy charlock because he seemed nervous.
I
- Ironwood - This is obviously the strongest of woods found on the Edge, used in the Sanctaphrax forest. Gathered by woodtrolls and sky pirates, it resembles a variety of giant pine, standing taller even than Earth redwoods. The wood of an ironwood tree is extremely strong, comparable in strength to iron, and for instance used to craft the lances of the Freeglade Lancers. Stope Boltjaw's artificial jaw is made of ironwood as well. The trees grow a branch every twenty years in large rings, at intervals up the trunk; this can be used to determine the age of ironwood trees. Quint explains this in the chapter where Quint and Maris use a particularly large tree as a beacon (Cash of the Skygalleons), along with the growth cycles of the ironwood tree. They can be used as a beacon by stranded sky-sailors because of their flammable sap. Although called a pine, a coniferous tree, the tree is once mentioned to shed its leaves like a deciduous tree. The Freeglade Lancers have their roost in the Ironwood stands, in between the Great and South lakes.
L
- Leadwood - Like the ironwood tree, and the copperwood, the leadwood is a non-buoyant tree of the edge wood (probably weighing as much as lead) It is noted a few times as being without grain,akin to polished metal, not wood.
- Loafsap - A type of bread which is said to be very filling when eaten, making it able to last for weeks.
- Lullabee - A tree that sings almost hypnotically. Feared by woodtrolls because its music may confuse or soporify the listener, but a favored haunt of clairvoyant caterbirds, carnivorous skullpelts, and wise oakelves.
- Lufwood - The lufwood tree is ash-grey and very tall, with a straight trunk devoid of many branches up until the canopy.
Lufwood timber has many unique qualities: it burns with a purple flame, which some find soothing. It is also one of many "buoyant woods" of the Edge, meaning that it becomes lighter than air in certain circumstances and can shoot off like a rocket; therefore it has to be burned in stoves. This attribute has led to certain sky-pirates using the wood in punishments known as "skyfiring": a mutinous person is strapped to a burning piece of lufwood (or any other buoyant wood) and then released to shoot off into open sky, never to return.
Most buoyant wood is also lighter than usual in normal temperatures, so they are often used in the construction of sky-ships. It is known that woodtrolls favour lufwood for use in their stoves and certain rituals.
O
- Oakapple - Similar to apple trees, they have white flowers. The fruit of this trees, called by the same name are very tasty.
P
- Pinecoffee plant - Not much is known about this plant, but in Midnight Over Sanctaphrax there is mention of the "familiar" smell of roasted pinecoffee beans.
- Pipsap - Fruit which causes those who eat it to shrink. The more that is eaten, the smaller one becomes until they eventually disappear.
- Plateleaf lilies - Similar to lilies, and found in lakes and ponds in the Deepwoods.
R
- Redpine - A pine-like tree that produces red resin, hence its name. It is mentioned in The Lost Barkscrolls.
- Redoak - A tree of the deepwoods mentioned in Clash of the Skygalleons noted for its branches growing in an ascending spiral like a spiral staircase. In Beyond the Deepwoods it is mentioned as used by slaugheterers to smoke tilder and its red smoke that colours their skin and hair. It is not mentioned whether its colour is from its leaves (like the real-life Copper-Beech) or its bark. Presumed to be a strong, dense hardwood like real oak.
S
- Sallowdrop - Resembles a weeping willow, grows near water. It produces a luscious, large fruit -from the illustrations- that looks like an aubergine and has the texture akin to a peach. Landfish lures look like particularly appealing Sallowdrop fruit.
- Scentwood - A buoyant wood that, when burned, is highly aromatic.
- Scrapewort - A plant whose berry, when ingested, causes a warty blue rash that never disappears
- Sour-cabbage - Similar to cabbages, but more sour. Commonly used as a foodcrop.
- Speargrass - Similar to some sort of grass.
- Spike-bush - Possibly a spiky species of bush.
- Stinkwood - A wood that is no doubt similar to scentwood, but creates a disgusting smell. Favoured by Tytugg's flat- and hammer- head goblins in Vox.
- Sumpwood - Little is known about the tree itself, but sumpwood is invaluable to wood-flight. The wood is silky and golden, and is unique in being the only wood that is buoyant enough to fly without being burned. Still, when not coated with mole-glue varnish, its level of buoyancy is very unstable and susceptible to small variations in temperature and humidity. The wood makes for a valuable component of skycraft. They were used for floating furniture in the first age of flight, for example the lecture theatre in the Knight's Academy (The Winter Knights).
T
- Tarry-vine - A type of animalistically mobile creeper, the tarry vine works with the bloodoak tree to capture prey. It appears to move using liquid pressure. When it is cut, the part that is still connected to the roots will sprout three new vines, much like a hydra. To prevent this from happening you must sear the fresh cut end with flame, also like a hydra.
- Tripweed - A plant eaten primarily by woodtrolls, but enjoyed by others also. Can be pickled. In Midnight Over Sanctaphrax, a search of the Undertown boom-docks yields a drinking pit that serves the cloddertrog favourite of tripweed beer. This foul-smelling beverage is brewed by fermenting tripweed with the entrails of dead oozefish, and has an annoying habit of lingering on the breath of drinkers. Quint, Twig, and Rook all hate tripweed. In The Immortals, Nate "can't bear the stuff" either.
W
- Waterwillow - Similar to the weeping willow, and related to the weeping willoak. Found near lakes and rivers in the Deepwoods.
- Weeping willoak - Similar to the weeping willow.
- Woodsap - A large, tasty pear-like fruit. It has dark red skin and golden flesh. The juice of this fruit can be used to make woodsap ale, a popular drink in Undertown and the Deepwoods Glades. Little, if anything, is known about the plant itself.
- Woodflax - Similar to flax and found in the Deepwoods. Weaved by the lowbelly goblin clans into strong cloth for their belly-slings.
- Wood-juniper - Similar to juniper and found in the Deepwoods. Can be used to make a salve that will help cure a fever. This is what Keris is treated with in The Lost Barkscrolls.
- Woodmint - A herb similar to mint, found in the Deepwoods.
- Woodonion - An edible plant, presumably based on onions. They can cause creatures to cry when cutting them and have many layers. First mentioned in Clash of the Skygalleons.