Mechelor

Able to thrive in almost any environment, the mechelor tree is common on Krell, found in a broad variety of climates, but it is only able to do so in a delicate balance of internal chemical equilibriums that have seen it firmly affixed in the Elgan culture as an unpleasant or even poisonous species.

Taking only the bare essentials necessary for growth and rejecting everything else as an irritant or toxin, the almost ascetic biological needs of the tree's growth are met with relative ease; oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, potassium, phosphorous, nitrogen, magnesium, calcium, sulfur and other small amounts of other elements allow the plant to grow like a weed if left unchecked, but everything else absorbed outside of what is absolutely necessary is transported into the buds of its succulent, five-petalled flowers and excreted in a colorless syrup called lachryma.

Mechelors that have absorbed a variety of waste materials produce wildly variable lachryma, which often as not act as deterrents to animals such as the malaca which might otherwise spread the still-developing seeds across a wide area, forcing the plant to eventually drop the rotting flowers near to the parent plant. When allowed to reach maturity, mechelor flowers become particularly engorged as the wet season approaches, growing fat as each petal swells with a long seed and all the nutrients it needs to propagate before scattering them into the floodwaters.

Though the process requires strict and unforgiving viticulture practices, mechelor flowers can be raised to produce a certain flavor, and milked slowly over time to allow a patient farmer to collect the syrupy lachryma which can be used in cooking, or brewed into mechelin wine.