Yikt (yickht)

A woody, broad-leafed kelp with several large, fruiting nodules that carpets trenches in the Western Gulf Ocean. It was discovered before the Age of Exploration by jaskin free-divers exploring the Mirgaun Trench, and once techniques were developed to stabilize it in essentia-poor soil, it became a staple of Skaiish and naiadeem crafts, cuisine, and culture.
Every part of the yikt plant has a different use:

• The stem is a tough and woody fiber that retains its shape well after being deformed. Once cut and dried, it is effective for basket weaving, reinforcing light armor, and lining the hulls of small thip'a.
• The leaves are wide and water-repellant thanks to an oil coating. This oil can be harvested when the leaves are mashed into a paste and allowed to dry, after which it can be applied to clothes and leather to confer this water-repellant property. The paste can also be used as a weak mortar for building, as part of a poultice, or as a (somewhat flavorless) base in cooking.
• The fruits, yellowish brown clusters of inverted teardrop-shaped nodes, are mildly sweet and produce an invigorating drink when juiced. A popular snack as well as a staple of the Skaiish diet.

Curious Cultivation

Yikt is unusual among its waterborne cousins in that it is primarily composed of earth essentia, rather than water. Its original home, the Mirgaun Trench, is uncommonly rich in earth essentia due to its depth, and so yikt developed a mechanism that allows it to harness this energy directly in order to grow. This takes a massive quantity of earth essentia, which normally depletes the soil at an unsustainable rate. To counteract this, naiadeem farmers modified the ritual used in mycowood processing known as "essential conversion" to be an additive process, rather than a deleterious one. For each season, a different essentia is procured from various sources and used to replenish what is consumed. In the summer, wind essentia is used thanks to its abundance; in the winter, fire essentia is siphoned from fireplaces and bonfires, as well as bartered for across the ocean; spring sees the use of water essentia, and fall the divine essentia. Due to this complex and ritualistic process, sea-farmers have a very important place in the social hierarchy of the naiadeem people.