Howlina - Day 21 - Flora and Fauna

But not Merryweather!

"Fill in the following lists:
For flora:

1. What plants are especially helpful to your society?
2. What are your peoples' main crops?
3. What are considered delicacies?
4. What fruits and vegetables can be turned into liquor or other drugs and medicines?
5. What do your people use to kill pain, put patients to sleep, become intoxicated, or get high?
6. What plants are dangerous?
1. Do you have predatory plants on your world?

For fauna

1. What animals are especially helpful to your world?
1. On a similar vein, what animals have your people domesticated?
2. Which of your fauna are used for food?
1. Domesticated animals might be used for food
2. wild animals may also be food sources in the form of game.
3. If you have meat eating domesticated animals, what do they eat, and do your people raise food animals for their domesticated meat-eaters?
4. Food animals also lead into the question of delicacies and exotics.
5. What kinds of animals are used in medical or drug development?
6. Finally, which animals are dangerous in your world?
1. Which ones are actively predatory, and would consider your people as "meat" if given the opportunity or enough desperation?
2. Which animals are not active predators, but have passive defenses that pose a threat to your world's inhabitants?"

Ah, this one is fun fun fun.  I often get carried away with this sort of thing.  This is really the kind of thing in world building where I can cut loose.  Bare with me if this gets long and strange.

Here are my answers:

FLORA:

1. Helpful plants?
1. They brought with them beans, oats, peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, leeks, spinach, squash, melons, apples and peas.  They only had a few varieties of these in the beginning, but the Howlers have always enjoyed breeding and creating new varieties so they brought only a few and then bred them into many very different products, both for the sheer variety and because the climate is very different on Howlina.
2. Once on Howlina they found that more tropical fruits did well so they obtained lemons, grapes and pineapples.
3. They found on the island several very useful plants
1. Veleeya - an olive like tree whose fruit is edible, provides good oil for cooking and lamps.  The wood has a very fine grain and is good for carving intricate things.  The bark is edible and aromatic as a seasoning and as incense.  The roots can be used to make tea with a high caffeine content and the leaves can make tea with no caffeine.  It is the single most useful plant they found on the island.
2. Savesti - a bush with two kinds of berries that bloom in different parts of the year.  In the spring the berries are sour like lemons, and in the autumn they are sweet like oranges.  The leaves are waxy and thorny, but evergreen like holly.  They make salve from this plant similar to aloe.
3. Dreeso - a tree with wood that is very good for building.
4. Patata - a tuber food plant with more fiber and less starch than potatoes.
5. Kanabee - a tall grass with a woody stem and fibrous leaves.  It is something of a cross between bamboo and hemp, but without the "medicinal" qualities of hemp.  It is the main source of rope and clothing fibers, as well as a renewable fuel and building source.
2. Main Crops?
1. The main export crop is veleeya fruit and veleeya oil.  The wine, both from savesti berries and grapes is also exported at a high profit margin.  They export apples and kanabee to a lesser extent.
2. Domestically, the main cash crops are oats, veleeya, savesti, patata, kanabee, apples, grapes, spinach and peas.  Several varieties of peppers are farmed for seasoning.
3. Most vegetables are grown in kitchen gardens and are not produced on a mass market scale.
3. Plant Delicacies?
1. Sweet savesti is a special treat because it is only harvested in a short time.  Though not exactly rare, the veleeya bark is popular and probably the signature taste of Howler cuisine.  So too are the teas made from veleeya.  It is safe to say that veleeya is the national tree.
4. Liquor, Drugs, Medicine?
1. Liquor - savesti berry wine, grape wine, apple cider, patata vodka
2. Drugs -  Very strong veleeya coffee is often made to increse the caffeine content to levels that approximate speed.  Patata leaves can have a calming, pain relieving quality when smoked, not too dissimilar from marijuana, but about a quarter as potent.  There is a native mushroom that is poisonous, but only slightly and when taken in very small amounts is psychotropic.
3. Medicine - savesti salve, patata leaf poultice or powder as a pain reliever.
5. See 4
6. Dangerous plants
1. There are several poisonous berries, fruits and leaves on the island.  All the mushrooms found on the island are poisonous.  This was the most dangerous plant until they people learned to leave them all alone.  There are no predatory plants.

FAUNA

1. Helpful Animals?
1. They brought with them (in parenthesis is the new breeds they developed):
1. Dogs (a new small hunting breed, a new pack breed, and a new herding breed)
2. Goats (a working breed (large cart puller) and a wool/milk breed)
3. Chickens
4. Rabbits (a meatier breed with much larger front legs that is so heavily domesticated that it cannot go feral)
5. Rats inadvertently arrived with the settlers. Instead of trying to kill them all they made an attempt to breed them into domesticability.  They were largely successful and the domesticated rats are largely unable to go feral
2. They domesticated the follow native species:
1. 2 bird species
1. Galopula - a heavy, flightless bird similar to turkey for meat and feathers
2. Papagalo - a species of parrot bred as a pet, these are the second most popular pets after dogs.  They are social and bond closely with their owners
2. 2 freshwater fish species
1. Solomo - a species of salmon that they both fish in the wild and have developed farming for.
2. Leekopsaro - a species of catfish again fished and farmed
3. 2 saltwater species
1. Steedi - a species of oyster farmed both for pearls and meat
2. Kavouri - a shore hugging crab that has been bred to domestication
3. Howlina seals are trained to help with fishing nets and herding fish.  They are tamed but not domesticated, similar to elephants in India.  They are even more widely used since the development of Mers.
2. Food Animals
1. Domestic: Goats (milk and meat), chicken (eggs and meat), rabbits, galopula, solomo, leekopsaro, steedi and kavouri
2. Wild
1. There is a native crocodile that is hunted and eaten often.  The skin is also tanned for leather.
2. Fishing is a prominent food source.  Harvest include tuna, sea bass, salmon, crabs, shrimp and lobster.
3. Seal and penguin hunting is done on a fairly small scale during the seasons when those animals are migrating past Howlina.  Whaling was done in the past, but no longer.
3. Food for Food
1. None of the domesticated animals except for dogs are meat eaters.  Dogs are often fed similar meats as the people.  Seals are allowed to eat some of the fish catch.
4. Meat Delacacies
1. Turtle - There is one species of sea turtle that beaches once a year in the earliest part of summer.  After the females lay their eggs they are ceremonially hunted on a very limited basis (usually the oldest, least fit, and the one that produces the least amount of eggs) and eaten in a holiday feast for that part of the year.  Their nests are identified and after a few eggs are culled as a special holiday treat, the nests are protected and when the young hatch they are escorted to the sea in safety.  They whole season is steeped in tradition.
2. Seal - there is a breed of seal that beaches in the very end of summer and stays on shore for a month.  When they arrive is the beginning of another holiday season.  The sick and weak are culled for a feast.  When the young are born they are carefully watched.  The weak and underdeveloped are culled and provide the end of season feast.
5. Medicine and Drug Development
1. Rats and rabbits are used for medicine testing.
6. Dangerous Animals
1. Sharks offshore
2. Large aggressive lizards (similar to Komodo dragons and iguanas)
3. Crocodiles
4. Poisonous frogs and toads
7. Although not specifically asked there are a few more animal products:
1. Goat fleece has been developed to two grades of wool that are used for clothing and other cloth products.  All Howler clothing is a product of goat wool and/or kanabi.  The coarse grade is used for insulation and blankets, while the smooth grade is used for fine wool products.
2. Rabbit fur is used for coats, mittens and hats.
3. Crocodile skin, goat skin and seal skin are all treated to provide leather and outerwear.
4. Fish oil and seal oil are harvested.
5. Sea turtle shells are kept whole and each household is allowed one as a ceremonial ornament.  Once a family has a shell they are no longer allowed to cull anymore sea turtles.  They can only take eggs for their holidays.  This is one precaution to help avoid over hunting.