Jellyshroom

Description

The Jellyshroom is a giant, highly luminescent flora species found only in the Jellyshroom Cave. Some Jellyshrooms are home to the Crabsnakes. Crabsnakes live inside the hollow trunks and will spring out to ambush the player.

Jellyshrooms can be harvested with a knife, giving Jellyshroom Spores, which can then be planted in the Exterior Growbed or Alien Containment, and can also be used in the Bioreactor as fuel (+140 Energy). Sometimes minerals or a Crabsnake Egg can be found inside the trunk.

Despite being placed in the Flora category, the Jellyshroom is similar to many real-world fungi in that it is saprotrophic, processing the decaying remains of the fish the Crabsnakes eat in order to grow. The Jellyshroom seems very similar in appearance to the Acid Mushroom, so it is possible that the two are distantly related.

Jellyshrooms have 3 variants: small, big, and hollow.

• The small variant has 150 HP and can be harvested 8 times, giving 9 seeds since the final knife hit gives two seeds instead of one.
• Both big and hollow variants have 1500 HP and can therefore be harvested 75 times, yielding 76 seeds with a bonus seed from the final knife hit.

All three variants will be destroyed once their HP have been depleted. It takes 1200 seconds (20 minutes) for a fully mature Jellyshroom to grow from a seed. The artificially grown Jellyshroom will always be the small variant.

Appearance

As the name suggests, the Jellyshroom strongly resembles a fungus with a jellyfish cap. Its stem is dark in colour and robust-looking, whilst its cap is transparent and a bright bioluminescent purple colour.

A smaller variety of Jellyshroom can often be found growing around the base of larger ones; some are tiny and almost completely transparent. The player cannot interact with these.

It is possible to swim inside some Jellyshrooms through the hole at the center of the cap. However, if a Crabsnake is inside the shroom, it will spring out and attack the player if they get too close.

Data Bank Entry

A lifeform unique to a microcosm located in a cave system deep within the grassy plateaus, where a high concentration of carnivorous lifeforms wards off smaller predators.

• Consists of a tough, trunk-like base from which grows a fragile purple membrane
• Membrane structure suggests vulnerability to predation, but evidence thereof is lacking
• Unknown defensive mechanisms?
• Possible symbiotic relationship?

Predators: None identified

Gallery

Top view

Adult Jellyshroom with juvenile Jellyshrooms

Size comparison with the player

Bioluminescence

A Crabsnake popping out of a Jellyshroom

A Crabsnake hiding inside a Jellyshroom.

The small variant of the Jellyshroom

The big, non-hollow variant of the Jellyshroom

The big hollow variant of the Jellyshroom with a Crabsnake egg inside

Alternate hollow variant with a small Jellyshroom attached

Size comparison with the player and the big Jellyshroom variant (bottom right)

Small underdeveloped Jellyshrooms that cannot be interacted with

Jellyshroom Model from Sketchfab

Concept Art

Trivia

• The original name of this flora was Jellyshroom; it was changed to Snake Mushroom at one point, then reverted back to Jellyshroom later.
• The Jellyshroom and the Crabsnake have an inter-species mutualistic relationship, one of only five such relationships observed so far on Planet 4546B. The other four are between the Crashfish and the Sulfur Plant, the Titan Holefish and the Symbiote, the Ventgarden and the Spiral Plant, and the floaters body.