Seagrass
Seagrass grows in meadows on the sandy floors of the shoals of the Tidebound Reaches, between the reefs and the kelp. It is not weed but a true grass of the sea, flowering and seeding under water. The Thaluren young who come down from the rivers in their own time feed first in its meadows, and the Thaluren hold the meadows close for that reason. A meadow that dies back is watched with dread.
Appearance
A seagrass meadow is a lawn under the sea: dense stands of narrow, flat, ribbon-like leaves, bright to olive green, from a hand to an arm long, rising from creeping roots buried in the sand and bending all one way with the current. Light falls through the shallow water onto it in moving nets. Small fish, shrimp, and crabs hide among the blades, sea snails graze them, and the older leaves are furred with fine growth and spotted with tiny white shells. A meadow breathes: on a still day, strings of small bubbles rise from it. Torn blades wash up on beaches in brown windrows that smell of iodine.
Habitat and Range
It grows in clear, shallow, sheltered water over sand and mud, on the inner side of the shoal worlds, around the island margins, and along the edges of the Kelpshade towards the mouths, wherever enough light reaches the floor. It does not grow in deep water, on rock, or in the murk of the river mouths.
Behaviour and Temperament
A meadow spreads by its roots, slowly, and holds the sand together, so that the floor under it is firm and clear while bare sand beside it drifts. It needs clear water; silt, warm and sluggish water, or anything that clouds the light kills it back from the edges.
Life Cycle
Each plant is a single creeping root sending up blades, and a meadow can be one plant spread over generations. It flowers under water in summer, small and unnoticed, and sets seed that drifts in the current.
Uses and Dangers
To the Thaluren the meadows are a nursery and a larder: the young feed and hide there in their first sea seasons, adults fish them for the small fish and shellfish they shelter, and settlements in reef shelter graze the edges. Slow returners graze them too. The meadows are tended as the shoals are, cleared of drifted weed and spared from trawling and anchoring. The dried blades are used as packing and bedding on the island edges.
It harms no one.
Lore and Belief
Thaluren say a meadow keeps the memory of every young that fed in it, and a returning adult swims over its first meadow on the way to the Kelpshade. A meadow that browns and thins is read by many as the first sign that the water is going wrong, and sea settlements have called on the Blightward Keepers for less; whether a dying meadow in the sea foretells blight in the spawning waters upriver is argued wherever the runs gather.