Natural History
Flora and Fauna
The flora and fauna of Rockall are alike unique. This is a consequence of the long isolation of the islands from Europe and their even longer separation from North America. Geologists estimate that the final severance of the land link to Europe must have occurred at least 30 million years ago.
Over that long time, the evolution of plants in Rockall has progressed at different rates and in different directions than in other lands.
There are coniferous forests enough in the Old and New Worlds, but the trees of those forests of northwestern Rockall are quite different. The bizarre wind-forests of northern Reschora and Kelcestre are without parallel. As for the mighty peveneks of Sandastre, their like is to be found only among the giant redwoods of California.
The forests of the lower northern hills and of central and southern Rockall are deciduous, like those of Europe. However, they, too, exhibit many differences. Not all are obvious, but any visitor would be surprised by the scaly-trunked skarens with their pale leaves, the russet-red trunks of the toronots of the West Marches, and the saffron-flowered ebelmeks of Sandastre.
The flora of the Great Marshes at the Aramassa’s mouth is wholly unique, from the misshapen catumat trees, through the tallavarry reeds (for long so important in Rockall’s economy), down to the smallest marsh plants. Even the plants of the smaller, inland marshes and the peat mosses show strong differences from those elsewhere.
Though Rockall is at the heart of an ocean, not all of it is humid. It has a desert, albeit small in extent, and there are other regions whose aridity results from situation and rock type. Each of these has plants unique to it, which are often of high commercial value. Rockall does have green grasslands: for example, the Green River of Herador has shores as green as any in England. However, nowhere else are there grasslands yellow at all seasons, like those of Montariot; nowhere else are there red grasslands, like those of the Serren Lowlands; nowhere else is there anything to match the grey-green soudredge (soderag) moors of Vragansarat.
Fauna
With so different a flora, it is not surprising to find a fauna just as remarkable. While amphibians and reptiles of Rockall show, in general, strong relationships with those elsewhere, there are also notable differences. The chelonians-- members of the turtle family-- may attain exceptional size, like the glagrangs of the Aramassa river system. The Great Marshes have many unusual reptiles, including crocodiles of an archaic type and snakes with unusual abilities. In the arid Mentone Hills, lizards grow to greater size than their relatives in Europe. Fiery-skinned salamanders and gliding frogs are among many other Rockalese specialities.
Some of the birds have much in common with those in Europe and North America. The taron of the northern shores is much like the gannet; the gherek of the Northern Mountains differs only in colour from large falcons; and the rewlen of central Rockall is much like a raven.
However, the plumage of Rockall’s small birds is more often green than brown and, in most
other groups, the Rockalese species are unique, even if their behaviour is not. An especially striking difference is that Rockall boasts no owls; instead, their role is taken up by night-flying falcons.
It is in the mammals that the greatest differences are found. Of course, there are creatures equivalent to the mammals of the rest of the world: the bavalins of southern Rockall and kalvaks of central Rockall are much like rhinoceroses, the galikhu like a water-hog, the aruchin much like a goat and the danatel like an antelope the size of a jackrabbit. Such carnivores as the thassak
of southern Rockall and the branath of the north are comparable to lions and tigers, while amerals are much like lesser predators such as ermines or minks. However, in other cases, the differences are profound. To find parallels to such creatures as the selth or the scaunt of central Rockall or the tasdavarl, xalenth and udru of the Northern Mountains, one must look far back in geological time.
The most remarkable feature is the capability of a number of Rockalese mammals to form telepathic links with each other and also, to a variable extent according to their
intelligence, with humans. A whole group of horned antelope-like creatures have this. It is weakest, perhaps, in the hasedu, an animal that, because it yields milk and because of its strength in hauling, serves the purpose in Rockall that cattle serve elsewhere. The animals used for riding all have stronger telepathic powers: they include the sevdru of southern Rockall, the rafenu of the central forests and the sturdy veledu and unicorn-like xalihu of the Northern Mountains. The larger and much rarer ramora (dakhramar) is possessed of the greatest telepathic powers, but it has not formed any regular relationship with mankind.
Comparably strong telepathic powers are exhibited voluntarily by the vasian of the forests of southern Rockall, an arboreal creature much like the tarsier of Indonesia and the Philippines. At times vasians will form close attachments to particular humans but, like the ramoras, they have never been domesticated.
