Gnarlwood Trees

Gnarlwood have bark similar in texture to maple, but have much deeper grooves as well as a darker hue. Their roots grow outward and downward at the same rate and are extremly flexible very dense and often have small rose-like thorns, creating matts of thorny bramble beneath the earth. The inside of a Gnarlwood tree exhudes a pale wood-flesh with greenish-yellow sap. The sap is exceptionally sweet in taste and is known to cause hallucinations when ingested in higher quantaties as well as being highly flammable and magically reactive. The trunk of the tree is known to bend and twist in strange directions even sometimes through or around other gnarlwood trees. The branches of a gnarlwood grow flatly against the horizen periodically in circular arrangement around the trunk. Gnarlwood trees are known to mature anywhere from 50 to 125 feet in height. Strangely, the flesh of the gnarlwood tree is expeditiously fireproof.

The gnarlwood seems to reproduce by budding, the linking of two individual roots creating a new individual gnarlwood tree, however this can also be done asexually. It is said that the gnarlwood can also convert other flora or even fauna into a gnarlwood tree but this is still being researched.

Gnarlwood trees have no seeds or seed buds, instead they start off as a sprout or gnarled sprig. The Gnarled sprig can grow in many different pathways either as a parasite to another tree, even another gnarlwood, or as an individual. Individual Gnarlwood trees will often bend and twist as they grow, sometimes even forming knots with their own trunks. As they grow their green and white flesh is visable through the netting of bark, in this stage they are called knotling. After 10 years gnarlwood trees often reach their last stage of growth, becoming larger and taller as they feed off the land. Whatever shape they end up in when they finish adolesence they tend to stay in unless changed by an outside force.

Gnarlwood are invasive and tend to take over anywhere they are planted. Most animals that feed off other trees such as woodlice or woodpeckers seem to have an aversion to gnarlwood trees. For this reason, knotlings are often kept arounf orchards to fend off pests. In their home of the Omenwood they create a mazelike forest that is eerily quiet and serene.