I wanted to talk a bit about how Gexgean land plants work on a structural level (something I’ve mentioned in passing before).
Cellulose isn’t a thing on Gexge. The cells of its plants owe their stiffness to a different compound (unnamed). Their cell walls take time to fully develop. When the plant forms a new structure, whether it’s a stem from a seed or a new leaf, it is initially as soft as the flesh of an animal and hardens in layers from the inside out.
This is what an un-walled Gexgean plant cell looks like under a microscope:
[Image description: A diagram of a round cell. It has a nucleus, large squarish mitochondria, “roseoplasts” instead of chloroplasts, a large organelle called a “cleaner subcell”, an oval organelle called a “reticustructum”, and several lysosomes floating around. End ID.]
Nucleus, mitochondria, lysosomes: You know these ones… more or less.
Roseoplasts: You know the equivalents of these ones.
Cleaner subcell: The equivalent of a Golgi body, if it also budded off lysosomes (and later consumed and repurposed them for protein-packaging material). The lysosome-production function was observed first, hence the cell being named for that.
Reticustructum: A unique organelle that produces the cellulose equivalent for the cell wall.
[Image description: A three-part diagram of the same cell. In the first image, the reticustructum is starting to produce a dark purple cell wall that builds up around the edge of the cell. In the second image, the cell wall encircles the entire cell, thicker near the reticustructum and thinner opposite it; the organelle is smaller, and is being eaten by lysosomes. In the third image, the reticustructum is gone and the cell wall has formed a square, with the cytoplasm having expanded to fill the new shape. End ID.]
As the plant’s new structure begins to come into its shape, the process of cell wall construction begins. The reticustructum secretes two substances: one that becomes the cell wall and another that dissolves the old cell membrane. As the process continues, lysosomes are attracted to it and begin to eat it as a way to ensure the cell wall doesn’t get too thick.
There are two methods of cell division. If a branch is making more branch cells, for example, a new reticustructum will form, enabling the cell to split in the regular plant manner. If a branch is growing a leaf, the lysosomes eat the cell wall as the nucleus starts to split and a cell membrane forms around it. The new cell kind of oozes out.
