Eragroot
Eragroot stands modest and patient above ground, its slender fern-limbed fronds shaped like feathered fans of mist and morning, while beneath the soil its true heart grows as a fat, tapering root whose inner flesh shifts in hue from deep violet to gold to red to white, depending on subtle secrets of soil and season. It grows both wild and tended across the river valleys, meadow-belts, and foothills of Northland, rooting best in deep, well-drained soils rich with last year's rain. By look alone the roots cannot be told apart; only the memory of the land and the luck of the gatherer reveal each variety.
Key traits
- Eragroot varieties produce edible roots of varying colours and flavours even within a single field, thriving in subtle soil differences.
- Feathered fronds trap dew and fine mist, feeding the plant even in dry seasons when skies grow sullen and rains fail.
- During seasonal flooding, roots can survive submerged in soft mud, waking only when the waters recede.
- Young roots are tender and sweet; older roots grow richer and earthier; wild varieties require long boiling or roasting to soften their strength, and some villages value this bitterness as a taste of strength drawn pure from the soil.
- Certain darker Eragroot strains serve in lowland apothecaries as a mild tonic for blood-strength and fever-breaking, though overuse can cause heaviness of limb.