Spearweed

Spearweed, otherwise known as spear flower, women's bane and cat's bane, is a species of weed native to Yuriba. The distinctive weed with its sharp white flowers is a fairly rare sight in Yuriba and is typically extirpated due to its poisonous properties.

Traits

Spearweed typically grows from a single spore, which will sprout two to nine long, spindly, dark green stems covered in whisper-thin thorn-like fibres. The stems can rise to about three feet and sport long, thin leaves covered in fine hair-like fibres of their own. As the weed matures, a small white flower sprouts at the tip of each stem, with narrow, sharp-pointed blue-yellow petals drawn in a curving cup around a yellow core with six pistils, which curve outward in a dramatic splay. Spearweed is not prolific but tends to grow in tight clumps in dark places. It's common in shaded areas of the forest, though it has thinned out considerably on the slopes of the Omolara Valley since the recent volcanic eruption.

The plant's fibres serve as a delivery mechanism for an extremely potent toxin. This typically serves as a survival method for the weed: if it's ingested by birds or wild animals, the toxin will rapidly inhibit the central nervous system, resulting in growing numbness and ultimately paralysis and death of respiratory failure. As such most Yuriban wildlife tend to give spearweed a wide berth, though some will pluck the flowers, as the petals have no poison delivery mechanism. In fact the petals, when reduced to an essence, have a pleasingly sweet scent and can be used as an ingredient in perfume.

Historical uses

Since the days of the middle Lily Civilization, spearweed has been valued for its potency as a poison. The weed's secretion is often collected carefully and used to coat the tips of spears and arrows, hence its name. Spearweed-treated weapons were occasionally employed by hunters, but more often used in warfare during the Final Lilian Period. Spearheads and arrowheads have been recovered with distinctive organic material from the weed saturating them.

The weed is generally destroyed on sight by most natives today, though some continue to cultivate small crops for medicinal and defensive purposes. Some native apothecaries continue to produce the poison in limited quantities.

When a very small amount of spearweed toxin is diluted with water and the essence of Halcyon Feathers, the resulting mixture can be used medically - with care - as a localized anaesthetic.