PLANTS and FLORA of GOR

Artic Flowers
The tundra at this time of year belies its reputation for bleakness. In many places it bursts into bloom with small flowers. Almost all of the plants of this nature are perennials, as the growing season is too short to permit most annuals to complete their growing cycle. In the winter buds of many of these plants lie dormant in a fluffy sheath which protects them from cold. Some two hundred and forty different types of plants grow in the Gorean arctic within five hundred pasangs of the pole. None of these, interestingly, is poisonous, and none possesses thorns. During the summer plants and flowers will grow almost anywhere in the arctic except on or near the glacial ice.
[Beasts of Gor p196]

Brak Bush
Almost all doors, including that of the House of Cernus, had nailed to them some branches of the Brak Bush, the leaves of which, when chewed, have a purgative effect. It is thought that...the branches of the Brak Bush discourage entry of bad luck into the houses of the citizens
[Assassin of Gor  p211]

Carpet Plant
I then rose to my feet and walked a few yards away, to a fan palm. From the base of one of its broad leaves I gathered a double handful of fresh water. I retuned to the girl and, carefully, washed out the wound. She winced. I then cut some leaves and wrapped them about it. I tied shut some leaves and wrapped them about it. I tied shut this simple bandage with the tendrils of a carpet plant.
[Explorers of Gor  p347]
 
Clover
I set her down on a bed of green clover. Beyond it, some hundred yards away, I could see the border of a yellow field of Sa-Tarna and a yellow thicket of Ka-la-na trees
[Tarnsman of Gor  p96]

Cocoa Tree
“This is warmed chocolate,” I said, pleased. It was very rich and creamy. “Yes, Mistress,” said the girl. “It is very good,” I said. “Thank you, Mistress,” she said. “Is it from Earth?” I asked. “Not directly,” she said. “Many things here, of course, ulti- mately have an Earth origin. It is not improbable that the beans from which the first cacao trees on this world were grown were brought from Earth.” “Do the trees grow near here?” I asked. “No, Mistress,” she said. “We obtain the beans, from which the chocolate is made, from Cosian merchants, who, in turn, obtain them in the tropics.”
[Kajira of Gor p 61]

Colored Grass
Besides the trees there were numerous shrubs and plantings, almost all flowered, sometimes fantastically; among the trees and the colored grasses there wound curved, shaded walks.
[Nomads of Gor  p217]

Date Palms
The principal export of the oases is dates and pressed-date bricks. Some of the date palms grow to more than a hundred feet high. It takes ten years before they begin to bear fruit. They will then yield fruit for more than a century. A given tree, annually, yields between one and five Gorean weights of fruit. A weight is some ten stone, or some forty Earth pounds.
[Tribesmen of Gor  p37]
“Pomegranate orchards lie at the east of the oasis,” I said. “Gardens lie inward. There is even a pond, between two of the groves of date palms.”
[Tribesmen of Gor  p174]

Dina
The dina is a small, lovely, multiply petaled flower, short-stemmed, and blooming in a turf of green leaves, usually on the slopes of hills, in the northern temperate zones of Gor; in its budding, though in few other ways, it resembles a rose; it is an exotic, alien flower; it is also spoken of, in the north, where it grows most frequently, as the slave flower.  But perhaps the dina is spoken of as the slave flower merely because, in the north, it is, though delicate and beautiful, a reasonably common, unimportant flower; it is also easily plucked, being defenseless, and can be easily crushed, overwhelmed and, if one wishes, discarded.
[Slave Girl of Gor  p61]

Fan Palm
One type of palm, the fan palm, more than twenty feet high, which spreads its leaves in the form of an open fan, is an excellent source of pure water, as much as a liter of such water being found, almost as though cupped, at the base of each leaf's stem.
[Explorers of Gor p310]

Fern
Besides the designs there were also, growing from planting areas recessed here and there in the marble walkway, broad-leafed, curling plants; vines; ferns; numerous exotic flowers; it was rather beautiful, but in an oppressive way, and the room had been heated to such an extent that it seemed almost steamy; I gathered the temperature and humidity in the room were desirable for the plantings, or were supposed to simulate the climate of the tropical area represented.
[Nomads of Gor p203]

Festal
“What do you see?” I asked.
“Shrubbery,” he said, “some grass, some rence, two trees.”
“What sort of shrubbery?” I asked.
“Some festal,” he said. “some tes, a bit of tor.”
[Vagabonds of Gor p339]

Flahdah Tree
Occasionally we passed a water hole, and the tents of nomads. About some of these water holes there were a dozen or so small trees, flahdah trees, like flat topped umbrellas on crooked sticks, not more than twenty feet high; they are narrow branched, with lanceolate leaves.
[Tribesmen of Gor p72]

Flaminium
There was a shallow bowl of flowers, scarlet, large-budded, five-petaled flaminiums, on the small, low table between us.
[Hunters of Gor p154]

Flowering Trees, Unnammed
And so we sat with our backs against the flower tree in the House of Saphrar, merchant of Turia. I looked at the lovely, dangling loops of interwoven blossoms which hung from the curved branches of the tree. I knew that the clusters of flowers which; cluster upon cluster, graced those linear, hanging stems, would each be a bouquet in itself, for the trees are so bred that the clustered flowers emerge in subtle, delicate patterns of shades and hues
[Nomads of Gor p217]

Hemp
A Gorean long bow of supple Ka-la-na wood, from the yellow wine trees of Gor, tipped with notched bosk horn at each end, loose strung with hemp whipped with silk, and a roll of sheaf and flight arrows.
[Raiders of Gor p2]

Hogarthe Tree
They were Hogarthe trees, named for Hogarthe, one of the early explorers in the area of the Barrens. They are not uncommon in the vicinity of water in the Barrens, usually growing along the banks of small streams or muddy, sluggish rivers. Their shape is very reminiscent of poplar trees on Earth, to which perhaps, in virtue of seeds brought to the Counter-Earth, they may be related.
[Blood Brothers of Gor p300]

Ka-la-na Tree
Besides several of the flower trees there were also some Ka-la-na trees, or the yellow wine trees of Gor;
[Nomads of Gor p217]
Ho-Hak reached down and unwrapped the leather from the yellow bow of supple Ka-la-na
[Raiders of Gor  p19]

Kanda
Most was I surprised to find him holding a tiny, round pipe from which curled a bright wisp of smoke. Tobacco is unknown on Gor, though there are certain vices or habits to take its place, in particular the stimulation afforded by chewing on the leaves of the Kanda plant, the roots of which, oddly enough, when ground and dried, constitute an extremely deadly poison.
[Priest-Kings of Gor p24]
Kutaituchik absently reached into a small golden box near his right knee and drew out a string of rolled kanda leaf. The roots of the kanda plant, which grows largely in desert regions on Gor, are extremely toxic, but, surprisingly, the rolled leaves of this plant, which are relatively innocuous, are formed into strings and, chewed or sucked, are much favored by many Goreans, particularly in the southern hemisphere, where the leaf is more abundant. Kutaituchik, not taking his eyes off us, thrust one end of the green kanda string in the left side of his mouth and, very slowly, began to chew it
[Nomads of Gor p43]

Kes Shrub
The principal ingredients of Sullage are the golden Sul, the starchy, golden-brown vine-borne fruit of the golden-leaved Sul plant; the curled, red, ovate leaves of the Tur-Pah, a tree parasite, cultivated in host orchards of Tur trees; and the salty, blue secondary roots of the Kes Shrub, a small, deeply rooted plant which grows best in sandy soil.
[Priest Kings of Gor p44]

Leech Plant
Once I shouted in pain. Two fangs had struck into my calf. An ost, I thought! But the fangs held fast, and I heard the popping, sucking sound of the bladder like seedpods of a leech plant, as they expanded and contracted like small ugly lungs. I reached down and jerked the plant from the soil at the side of the road. It writhed in my hand like a snake, its pods gasping. I jerked the two fanglike thorns from my leg. The leech plant strikes like a cobra, and fastens two hollow thorns into its victim. The chemical responses of the bladderlike pods produce a mechanical pumping action, and the blood is sucked into the plant to nourish it. As I tore the thing from my leg, glad that the sting had not been that of the venomous ost, the three hurtling moons of Gor broke from the dark cover of the clouds. I held the quivering plant up. Then I twisted it apart. Already my blood, black in the silvery night, mixed with the juices of the plant, stained the stem even to the roots. In a matter of perhaps two or three seconds, it had drawn perhaps a gill of liquid. With a shudder I hurled the loathsome plant away from the road. Normally such plants are cleared away from the sides of the roads and from inhabited areas. They are primarily dangerous to children and small animals, but a grown man who might lose his footing among them would not be likely to survive.
[Outlaw of Gor  p33]

Liana Vine
Another useful source of water is the liana vine. One makes the first cut high, over one’s head, to keep the water from being withdrawn by contraction and surface adhesion up the vine. The second cut, made a foot or so from the ground, gives a vine tube which, drained, yields in the neighborhood of a liter of water
[Explorers of Gor p310]

Lotus
From where I sat I could see two lovely pools, in which lotus like plants floated; one of the pools was large enough for swimming; the other, I supposed, was stocked with tiny, bright fish from the various seas and lakes of Gor.
[Nomads of Gor p218]

Needle Tree
The needle trees, the evergreens, for masts and spars, and cabin and deck planking.
[Raiders of Gor  p141]

Palm Tree
There is an incredible variety of trees in the rain forest, how many I cannot conjecture. There are, however, more than fifteen hundred varieties and types of palm alone. Some of these palms have leaves which are twenty feet in length. One type of palm, the fan palm, more than twenty feet high, which spreads its leaves in the form of an opened fan, is an excellent source of pure water, as much as a liter of such water being found, almost as though cupped, at the base of each leaf’s stem.
[Explorers of Gor  p310]

Pomegranate
“Pomegranate orchards lie at the east of the oasis,” I said. “Gardens lie inward. There is even a pond, between two of the groves of date palms.”
[Tribesmen of Gor p174]

Sim Plant
I did not know at the time but Gur is a product originally secreted by large, gray, domesticated, hemispheric arthropods which are, in the morning, taken out to pasture where they feed on special Sim plants, extensive, rambling, tangled vine-like plants with huge, rolling leaves raised under square energy lamps fixed in the ceilings of the broad pasture chambers, and at night are returned to their stable cells where they are milked by Muls.
[Priest-Kings of Gor p214]

Sip Root
“We make them chew carefully and watch closely to see that they swallow, bit by bit, in small swallows, siproots, as well,” said another.
“We then examine their mouths, forcing them widely open, to determine that they have finished their entire allotment of the root,” said another.
I nodded. Sip roots are extremely bitter. Slave wine, incidentally, is made from sip roots. The slaves of the red savages, like the slaves generally on Gor, would be crossed and bred only as, and precisely as, their masters might choose.
[Blood Brothers of Gor p124]
She did not need the sip root, of course, for, as she had pointed out, she had had some within the moon, and, indeed, the effect of sip root, in the raw state, in most women, is three or four moons. In the concentrated state, as in slave wine, developed by the caste of Physicians, the effect is almost indefinite, usually requiring a releaser for it remission, usually administered, to a slave, in what is called the breeding wine, or the second wine.
[Blood Brothers of Gor p319]

Talendar
In the distance, perhaps some forth pasangs away, I saw of set of ridges, lofty and steep, rearing out of a broad, yellow meadow of talendars, a delicate, yellow-petaled flower, often woven into garlands by Gorean maidens
[Outlaw of Gor p131]
The talendar is a flower which, in the Gorean mind, is associated with beauty and passion. Free Companions, on the Feast of their Free Companionship, commonly wear a garland of talendars. Sometimes slave girls, having been subdued, but fearing to speak, will fix talendars in their hair, that their master may know that they have at last surrendered themselves to him as helpless love slaves
[Raiders of Gor  p216]
The talender, fixed in her hair, is a slave girl’s wordless confession, which, commonly, she dares not speak, that she cares for her Master
[Hunters of Gor  p65]

Telekint
The drover threw back the hood of his burnoose, and pulled down the veil about his face. Beneath the burnoose he wore a skullcap. The rep-cloth veil was red; it had been soaked in a primitive dye, mixed from water and the mashed roots of the telekint; when he perspired, it had run; his face was stained.
[Tribesmen of Gor  p83]

Tem Tree
Tem-wood for rudders and oars;
[Raiders of Gor  p141]
there was also, at one side of the garden, against the far wall, a grove of tem-wood, linear, black, supple
[Nomads of Gor  p217]

Tes
“What do you see?” I asked.
“Shrubbery,” he said, “some grass, some rence, two trees.”
“What sort of shrubbery?” I asked.
“Some festal,” he said, “some tes, a bit of tor.”
[Vagabonds of Gor p339]

Teslik
The active ingredient in the breeding wine, or the “second wine,” is a derivative of teslik.
[Blood Brothers of Gor p320]

Tor
“What do you see?” I asked.
“Shrubbery,” he said, “some grass, some rence, two trees.”
“What sort of shrubbery?” I asked.
“Some festal,” he said, “some tes, a bit of tor.”
“You are sure it is a tor shrub?” I asked.
He looked. “Yes,” he said.
“I too, think it is a tor shrub,” I said. The shrub has various names but one of them is the tor shrub, which name might be fairly translated, I would think, as, say, the bright shrub, or the shrub of light, it having that name, I suppose, because of its abundant, bright flowers, either yellow or white, depending on the variety. It was a very lovely shrub in bloom. It was not in bloom now, of course, as it flowers in the fall.
He looked at me. “So?” he asked.
“Do you notice anything unusual about it?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“How high is it?” I asked
“I would say some five feet in height,” he said.
“That too, would be my estimate,” I said.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Does that not seem interesting to you?” I asked
“Not really,” he said.
“It does to me,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“The tor shrub,” I said, “does not grow higher than a man’s waist.”
[Vagabonds of Gor p339]
 
Tospit Bush
I raced past a wooden wand fixed in the earth, on top of which was placed a dried tospit, a small, wrinkled, yellowish-white, peachlike fruit, about the size of a plum, which grows on the tospit bush, patches of which are indigenous to the drier valleys of the western Cartius. They are bitter but edible.
[Nomads of Gor p59]

Tur Tree
There was one large trunked reddish Tur tree, about which curled its assemblage of Tur-Pah, a vinelike tree parasite with curled scarlet, ovate leaves, rather lovely to look upon; the leaves of the Tur-Pah incidentally are edible and figure in certain Gorean dishes,; such as sullage, a kind of soup; long ago, I had heard, a Tur tree was found on the prairie, near a spring, planted perhaps long before by someone who passed by; it was from that Tur tree that the city of Turia took its name;
[Nomads of Gor p217]
We found ourselves now in a stand of the lofty Tur trees. I could see broadly spreading branches some two hundred feet or more above my head. The trunks of the trees were almost bare of branches until, so far above, branches seemed to explode in an interlacing blanket of foliage, almost obliterating the sky
[Captive of Gor p130]
Tur wood is used for galley frames, and beams and clamps and posts, and for hull planking;
[Raiders of Gor  p141]

Veminium
The petals of veminium, the “Desert Veminium,” purplish, as opposed to the “Thentis Veminium,” bluish, which flower grows at the edge of the Tahari, gathered in a shallow baskets and carried to a still, are boiled in water. The vapor which boils off is condensed into oil. This oil is used to perfume water. This water is not drunk but is used in middle and upper-class homes to rinse the eating hand, before and after the evening meal.
[Tribesmen of Gor  p50]
     
Verr Grass
On the shaded sides of some rocks, and the shaded slopes of hills, here and there, grew stubborn, brownish patches of verr grass.
[Tribesmen of Gor p71]