Haanth Cactus (haa-nth)

Images by Kbignell via Midjourney

The haanth cactus grows only in the The Desert of Quouribi and only above small underground caverns. These caverns shift as often as the sand, one filling in at one place and an other opening up elsewhere. Since they are in the bed rock of the land, the sand-sharks cannot get to them, but other hardy denizens of the Quouribi desert do find them and thrive in them for as long as they last.
The haanth cactus is short and barrel like, manifesting one to 10 barrels in a cluster above the sand, the barrels anywhere from 3 to 20 inches in diameter, depending on the amount and quality of water found in the small caves above which they grow.
This plant is harvested by the Qoitiken people for its valuable medicinal properties as well as for its flesh that can be made into a very effective sponge once properly treated. The juice extracted from a mature haanth can be fermented into a very strong alcohol with a unique taste like electric honey.
The skin of this plant is rubbery, brown, and hard and when cured correctly makes a hard plastic like material that can be used to create containers, etc... This material can be colored a variety of colors during the curing process. The cactus barrels can grow to about 5 feet tall and their flowers, when they bloom, are a golden yellow in the summer and bright white in the winter. The flowers only bloom on the very top of the cactus as far from the desiccant sands as possible and last for only a day before forming a helicopter like fan that lifts on the breeze and rides the heat currents in search of another under-sand cave of water. The plant reproduces asexually. The roots of the plant grow down into the cave of water below and dip into the water to survive. Once the cave's water dries up, the main part of the cactus dies and eventually become powder. The metal like spikes all over it mix with the sand and the toxin dissipates but the spikes remain and work their way under the sand to the rock, eventually melding together to form small deposits of the forbidden metal Kreleit .
Fresh spikes from the cactus are often made into blow darts to take down larger animals in the frozen north and the normal desert of the Seven Tribes of Uhl territories.

Haanth cactus are tough, brown and spikey. They flower twice per turn, once in the winter and once in the summer. Their thorns are highly toxic.

Geographic Distribution

• The Desert of Quouribi