Rofalssa stalk

The term 'Rofalssa stalk' is about as specific as the term 'tree', in that it refers not to a single species, but to a vast spectrum of lifeforms related to eachother to widely varying degrees.

Originating on Kasputin Yar, and currently growing only there, these huge stalks are not single lifeforms, but rather symbiote comglomerates that make simple categorization nearly impossible through the sheer number of possible combinations.

The pillar of a Rofalssa stalk is a single species, a thick and woody sort of fungus that feeds upon methane and electrical current, as well as atmospheric methane and rotting material. Their roots run deep, even so far as to reach the bedrock and slowly digest it, drawing up the minerals into the core of each thick and cylendrical body segment, and slowly pumping them upwards, to be incorporated into the heavy sheathing that forms the main structural support of a Rofalssa.

Feeding the fungal pillar as it grows taller and thickens, are photovoric upper symbiotes. Taking on a tremendous variety of shapes as they feed off the minerals pumped up by the pillars, some of these plantlike things form broad and flat plateaus, others vast nests of long stalks, and others form masses of globules that grow and replicate and fall off periodically in their great exuberence to gorge themselves on the radiation-rich sunlight.

Linking the upper symbiotes to the lower are vinelike growths that cling to the outside of the stalk, and leech into them to steal small quantities of echamical energy and nutrients. Running clean from top to bottom, these growths steal metallic minerals from the fungus, and gather them into their bodies. They then proceed to use the constant ionic bombardment of the upper canopy to harvest electrical energy, and fuel massive growth of their own. Their current is stolen back by the fungal stalks, and accelerates their growth as well, dramatically magnifying the rate at which the entire stalk increases its height and mass.