Suntenna

Although yellow in color, the suntenna has features associated with black plants, particularly the hairlike microphyll leaves that interlock the way feathers do. The suntenna looks like a retrofuturistic spire crossed with a horsetail. Rings of descending size radiate from the stalk with the shadows cast by the top rings never overlapping the leafed portion of the lower rings. The plant seems to go out of its way to avoid casting a shadow on itself, while other plants utilize wind motion and darker pigment to make use of shaded foliage.

The leaves of black plants are filamentous and served by a single loop of vasculature. These are called microphyll leaves and are found on Earth in lycophytes, some ferns, and some gymnosperms, though their veins do not loop. Black plant leaves have barbules like those on a feather that can interlock with neighboring leaves and even neighboring fronds. They can assemble into structures resembling a complex leaf or hang independently like plume feathers. They can even form down for insulation in cold enviroments or for sun protection in exposed regions.

Suntennas usually angle themselves toward the sun and this is especially apparent in areas far from the substellar point. Plants growing near Ilion's terminator angle themselves to an extreme and have specialized structures for growing sideways.

Feather interlocking requires constant maintenence. Plants reproduce with haploid mobile offspring but these offspring can also be created as a worker caste. The mobiles of black plants are especially polymorphic. Males are adapted for flight or ballooning (in the case of suntennas and their relatives, by parachutes made of parental feathers), while females stay on the parent plant and are dispersed by animals. The workers of suntennas are about the size of grain mites and have claws specialized for parasite removal and feather preening.