#ghost plants

Needed more ghosts.

I spotted these ghostly wildflowers during my wanderings in the mountains. They are tiny white parasites. They look like fungi, but are really non-photosynthetic plants.Indian Pipes do not contain chlorophyll, so they must mooch off fungi that mooch off of tree roots. They are waxy white and do look ghostly. Monotropa uniflora There were many groups of Monotropa uniflora in the shade under some…

I think ghost plants will either 1) be even more abstract than your average ghost (hard to perceive with human senses, and acts like nothing in the physical plane) or 2) one of the more naturally flesh-like spirits (ghost plants act more like their living counterparts than ghosts do).

This is the 1st option explored:

Plants can communicate, but they don’t feel emotions like any animal does. Plants operate on electrical signals and small currents of electricity, but do not possess central nervous systems. Plants are weird in the ghost zone.

They don’t interact with the ghost zone as the other more human and animal spirits do. Maybe they form islands? It’s possible they anchor land together by finding ways to manipulate the infinite realms? Maybe they grow in lairs too?

It’s possible that plants are more parasitic? It seems to be hard to find land in the ghost zone, and the ghost zone is known for letting it’s inhabitants be… diverse. Maybe plants are a lot more aggressive and predatory in the ghost zone? Maybe they latch onto ghosts and grow on them?

Who even necessarily says plants have to be stationary in the ghost zone?

What about wandering tangles of… trees? Grass? Plants don’t even have to grow upwards anymore. The ghost zone doesn’t exactly have a sun.

Plants do have instincts and natures themselves, but how they “imagine” themselves is very different. (If they even can imagine themselves.) They don’t have the sense of self that humans / animals do. They’re more of a blank slate when it comes to their looks. (I think so at least.) They’ll probably look like Eldridge abominations.

The most they’ll probably “remember” of themselves is how their parts work, so they’re forms will probably be loosely based on the plant’s structure from before. And then you remember that ghosts are known to manipulate themselves past their old forms. Yeah man I’m not even sure how that would work. Do you think some ghost plants can turn intangible on command like how some plants curl up in response to touch?

What about plants that emerge straight from Spiritual sources? 100% ghost zone originals. Would these “spirit plants” even be recognizable as plants?

What if plants are more like concepts in the Zone? What if they can’t become ghosts; can’t spawn themselves within the zone from the physical plant? The realms is based on will and emotion right? What if someone thought hard enough about plants and oh my goodness they just started to exist one day.

What if ghost plants were self-propagating concepts? Able to be manipulated like any old ectoplasm, but that tried to put themselves back into a certain shape / form when possible? They were just ectoplasmic manifestations that spawned other ectoplasmic manifestations.

This is the 2nd option explored:

Plants somehow end up the most like their physical world reflections. They are plants with ghostly attributes. They glow and produce chemicals to deal with specifically spiritly predation, but they are just plants that are also ghosts.

They, like all things in the Infinite Realms, might be a little moodier. They might be a little more mobile, they might almost be sentient in a plant sort of way, but they are still just ghost plants.

Of course certain options can co-exist.

And another question: where do you think blood blossoms fit into all this? Do you think they are liminal flowers? Are they one of the options above? Something else?

[I’m terribly sorry that I can’t decide, but how insane do you imagine the ghost zone to be?

What do you draw the line at? Because I’m happy to go in every direction.

After another fiasco with the ghost flowers from the Ghost Investigation Ward (GIW), the park officials have decided to give ectoplasmic plants one more chance with Danny Phantom. Fortunately, Phantom has told the officials that most of the plants they already have are safe to humans and ghosts (and non-traumatizing) so he only needed to get a few more.

Night Hellebores

According to folklore, these macabre flowers would mysteriously form a trail to haunted places, that anyone who followed them would be snatched up by ghosts and never seen again. According to Phantom, these flowers were planted by ghosts for newly formed ghosts to follow so that they had a safe place to hide while they grew stronger. Unfortunately, this grew out of practice over time when portals to the mortal realm became rare and inconsistent. No ghost wanted to be stuck in the human world with no way back. During the day, Night Hellebores are simply black flowers but at night the middle glows a bright blue.

Frozen Roses

Frozen Roses cannot be found anywhere else in the world since they are one of the few plants that completely originate from the Ghost Zone. Despite this, Phantom has assured us that they are safe to grow in the park. These roses are bright white with blue leaves and are attracted to ghosts. They even grow better around stronger ghosts!

Cardinal's Treat

Supposedly, this ectoplasmic bush can only be planted by leaders, though this is obviously not true, and are the only ones who can tolerate the taste of the berries since they are so bitter to everyone else. Phantom tells us that Ghost Kings are given a special meal made almost entirely of these berries before their coronation, if the King cannot stomach the meal or gives up is seen as unfit to rule. We don't quite understand how a ghost is able to taste but is interesting no matter what.

Phantom offers to get ghost plants!

After another disaster with the ghost plants given by Fentonworks and the Ghost Investigation Ward (GIW), Danny Phantom offered to provide new ecto plants directly from the the Ghost Zone. Park maintenance are obviously very dubious about this but have decided to give ecto plants one last try, mostly due to them coming from a ghost and not a self-proclaimed expert. He says this will take a few days to gather but will gladly help in the planting when he has them.

Of course, the GIW and Fentonworks are both very much against this. The GIW tried to get Mayor Masters to force the park to refuse help from the ghost hero but the Mayor has declined. However, he has given an official statement about the situation.

"It'll be interesting to see what the ghost brings but if any of the plants have a negative impact then I will ban ectoplasmic plants from being planted in public locations."

Kraken's nest traumatises child!

Imagine for a moment that you are a young boy who loves fish. You love fish so much that everyday after school, your mother takes you to the local park so you can look at the fish in the pond. They're not big things or rare but you still love to watch them swim around.

Now, you just learnt that they're putting ghostly flowers in the park. You're not that interested in ghosts but you do know that one of the plants protects fish. How amazing is that?! So as soon as you find out you beg your mom to take you to the park to see the new plants. You get there and the plants are waving about in the wind like octopus arms, they look so strange but they help the fish so you don't mind. A small bird comes flying up to the pond, landing peacefully next to the water. You watch, wondering what the plants will do.

Until suddenly one of the tentacles whips towards the bird as fast as possible, grabs the bird and pulls it back into the unseen center of the plant. The only thing left is a few feathers and crying child.

This is what happened this morning to a child in Bell's park. It seems that while the Kraken's nest does protect fish from birds; the Ghost Investigation Ward (GIW) neglected to mention how exactly it did this.