Lawn Poralp
In the race to become the most dominant marine multicellular flora, many lineages of poralp have staked each their own claim; for the 15 centimeter tall Greater Poralp Trees residing in sheltered coasts, this didn’t mean growing upwards to maximize photosynthetic output, but outwards, carpeting the calm, sandy substrate with their numbers. An offshoot of these populations, the Lawn Poralp, is finely specialized for this life.
While other multicellular poralps send their blades outward, the Lawn Poralp instead shoots them upwards in dense concentrations with the bases close to the substrate, giving a silhouette reminiscent of a tuft of grass, and like grass this provides an efficient means of photosynthesis for such a carpeting seaweed. Lawn Poralps can easily regrow severed blades, and thus these provide a very reliable food source for the ubiquitous IWMLEtMaB. Its holdfasts have become specialized for burying into fine substrate, with a lower configuration ensuring that it stays on the substrate, and a wider, shallower configuration which function as runners. Thanks to the consistent abundance of nutrients where they’re found, Lawn Poralps can easily bud off cloned individuals from these runner-like holdfasts.
Developing independently from the Arboralp, the Lawn Poralp can sexually reproduce by way of expelling gametes into the water column as to broaden their spread and minimize intraspecific competition. Compatible gametes conjugate and form a spore, which then becomes a new Lawn Poralp once in a suitable location. Like other poralps, severed blades can become a new organism should the right conditions be met.