Plants make up nearly 94 percent of the total living matter on Earth. The plant kingdom has provided mankind with food, shelter, medicine, weapons, and enjoyment for thousands of years. Therefore it makes sense that, with the exception of the most sterile of environments, plants exist in whatever world your campaign is currently using.

In most cases, specific plants are not that important: the PCs ride through a forest, or pass a group of workers harvesting some grain, or find a key NPC dying on the floor from some poison. But the setting changes depending on whether it's a cold coniferous forest or a tropical canopied forest, the workers are harvesting barley instead of oats, or the NPC is dying of inadvertent ergot poisoning from rotting bread as opposed to a deliberate murder from a dose of hemlock. And whether or not the players would recognize one or the other, many characters would have such an understanding of the plants in their region.

This column is to help the game master provide better more realistic descriptions on the characters' surroundings, challenge the characters' day-to-day routines, and provide a ton of in-depth plot hooks to make campaigns more interesting, all using the flora available to your characters. We will be covering clime and terrain, poisons, wilderness foods, important plants of various regions, symbolic and fictional representations to the Otherworld, and medicinal plants both common and rare.

The Plant Kingdom in Your Campaign

This first article covers a basic knowledge of several different terrains and climates, and provides you with what the various vegetation looks like in these regions. For a GM, a rudimentary knowledge of what belongs where provides you with a better description, and prevents you from making mistakes that someone might call you on. Say you have a 100-foot tall weeping willow on top of a high crag. It may not seem like a big deal, but willows are water-lovers, need rich soil to survive, and tall trees tend to be rare to non-existent that high in the air. It's an anomaly, but these anomalies can quickly become plot points. For a character who lives in this realm, or a ranger who's accustomed to living in the wilderness, this tree should not be here—we should go investigate. Therefore this allows you to lead the adventurers to the tree, which may be a fairy tree, or an entryway into another realm, or The Tree of Life itself.

Since most fictional worlds are similar to our own, I'll use the most common biomes of Earth. Obviously there are microclimates depending on altitude and precipitation, but if you take under consideration what effect you're looking for, you can supply your adventurers with a better idea of what's around them. I am skipping the diversity of wetlands for now; they deserve their own article.

Basic Geography

Obviously, not all worlds are like Earth, but it seems a lot of them have similarities. The following lists will provide you with basic ideas of what plants to expect in different climates; anything you add that doesn't fit should stand out to most characters like a sore thumb. This can be a good thing if you're directing them to a location. Here's a run-down of where these regions are located in regards to coasts, the equator, and mountains.

• Tundra: Top of the world
• Taiga: Below the Tundra, but above 50 degrees latitude north
• Temperate Forests: Identified as having four complete seasons, found in places similar to the eastern side of the United States, Europe, Canada, China, Japan, and Russia.
• Grasslands: Found on every continent except Antarctica. They are found on either side of the desert belts. Closer to the equator they are "tropical" grasslands and include savannahs. Further from the equator they have harsh winters and are called prairies or steppes.
• Deserts: Deserts are very specialized but are identified by being very dry with little precipitation. Antarctica is as much a desert as the Sahara. Most deserts are found between the 30 degree latitude marks on a globe. Some deserts are caused by nearby mountains—the mountain knocks the precipitation out of the air leaving none for the land directly after.
• Rainforests: Tropical rainforests are found along the equator. Temperate rainforests are found along some coasts in the temperate zones.
• Alpine: Alpine tundra is a harsh climate that is not affected by position on the globe, but by altitude.
• Chaparrals: Coastlines usually facing west.
• Wetlands: Found along low-lying areas and along rivers, lakes, and streams. See later article.

Here's additional information on these biomes:

Arctic Tundra: Tundras are barren lands, and circumnavigate the North Pole. The ground is permanently frozen from 10 inches to three feet down. Trees can't grow and the bare, rocky ground can only support low-growing plants like heathers, mosses, and lichens. In the winter it is a dark and frozen wasteland and in the summer the top layer of permafrost melts and creates marshes, lakes, bogs, and streams. The tundra is similar to a desert in precipitation, its only water supply coming from the melting of the snow and ice. Plants can't decompose, so the soil is void of nutrients. There are the rare low shrub or sedge, a variety of grasses, and few flowering plants. In the lower latitudes on the edge of the tundra, some birches grow. There may be some willows, but they grow as low-lying clumps maybe 3 inches high at most.

Taiga or Boreal Forests: Just below the Arctic Tundra is the taiga, a lonely place with six months of frozen winters and 100 days of warm, humid summer. The extreme changes in temperatures make it very difficult for plants to survive. There are some lichens and moss, but most plants are coniferous, such as pine, spruce, hemlock, and fir. These evergreens tend to be thin and grow together in stands, sometimes miles wide. Fires are common occurrences, after which the forest floor is exposed allowing baby evergreens and short-lived trees such as poplars and white birches to grow.

Alpine: On mountains 10,000 feet or more, the air is thinner, the sun more intense, and the soil weaker. Trees would get blown over or freeze. Plants consist of small perennial groundcover plants which grow and reproduce slowly. The rare trees to grow at the 10,000 foot mark are thick-trunked, warped, and ancient—usually evergreens like the bristlecone pine. Edible plants are rare, although adventurers may be able to find wild potatoes at those heights on mountain ranges nearer to the equator.

Grasslands: These areas are usually large and rolling regions of grasses, flowers, and herbs. They are typically found inland in the middle latitudes. The average annual precipitation is enough to support grass and the occasional tree, but is erratic, leading to droughts and wildfires that prevent forests. The soil is also too thin and dry for most trees to survive. There are two types of grasslands: tall-grass areas that are humid and very wet and short-grass regions that are drier with hot summers and colder winters. The steppes are a particularly cold, dry grassland region. Rather than vegetation-producing farms, people tend to use these lands as pastures for animals.

Deciduous Forests: Deciduous forests have four distinct seasons and the trees change color in the autumn, and are bare in the winter. There are five zones in the forest: the highest contains the tallest trees at 60 to 100 feet, then the sapling and small tree zone, the shrub zone, herb zone, and the ground zone of moss and lichen. Plants have adapted by leaning towards the sun. These regions are densely populated by people using the wood for buildings and fuel, and many areas are clear-cut to make room for farms.

Chaparrals: These regions are found along the coasts and are characterized by a very hot and dry climate. There can be flat plains, rocky hills, and mountain slopes. Fires and droughts are common. Two examples that people might recognize are the California and the Mediterranean chaparrals. Besides cacti, many succulents and aromatic herbs are well-adapted to heat and drought. Roots run deep and many of the leafy plants have small, fuzzy, silvery leaves that reflect excess sunlight.

Deserts: Most deserts are hot and dry with a few low-lying plants to forage for--just some ground-hugging shrubs and some short woody trees as well as the cacti deserts are commonly known for. Cold deserts are closer to the arctic and have an extreme change from the dry heat of the summer to snow in the winter, too cold for anything other than a few grasses or mosses to grow. In the summer, the cold desert has many spiny-leaved plants. In the rainy seasons these deserts can suddenly explode in color as many seeds of annual plants burst into bloom in a desperate attempt to reproduce. Surrounding the deserts is a median of scrub grasses and dry sedges that can shade herbs and other plants.

Savannah: Similar to grasslands, the savannahs are usually found between the deserts and tropical rainforests. Not enough rain falls on the savannah to support forests, but there are lots of grasses and the occasional shrub or tree scattered about. There are usually two seasons, a long dry winter and a shorter wet monsoon-ridden summer. Plants in these regions are highly specialized for the long droughts. The eucalyptus lives in the Australian Savannah just as the acacias make up the Serengeti.

Rainforests/Jungles: These regions consist of forests that grow in warm temperatures year-round. The temps are rarely hotter than 34 degrees Celsius, or colder than 20 degrees, and receive over 100 centimeters a year. A tropical rain forest has more kinds of trees than any other area in the world. Trees are typically straight for up to 100 feet or more before branching out and have thin, smooth bark. There are four distinct layers to a tropical forest: emergent trees of 100 to 240 feet tall spaced widely apart to make up the canopy; the upper canopy of 60- to 100-foot tall trees that still get plenty of light and have the most animals; the understory of 60-foot tall trees that is most humid and with little air movement; and the forest floor, which is completely shaded with few shrubs or trees. Unless a canopy tree falls, trees growing up from the forest floor are stunted. There is an overabundance of vines and the floor always appears to have rain from the water dripping off the plants above it. With the exception of vines, most deep rainforests are not difficult for people to walk through because of the sparseness of the floor vegetation.

A Quick Checklist

Sometimes players ask a question about their surroundings and you have to make a call. Here's a quick description of basic flora you'd find in certain places.

Hot and Dry: Plants have silvery leaves or deep taproots. Consist of succulents and aromatic herbs. Tree leaves are few and feathery.

Slopes: Grass, spreading groundcovers, small shrubs.

High Winds: Tough, strong-stemmed plants, usually dwarf and low-growing trees. Small leaves so the wind can pass more readily through the branches.

Rocky Areas: Low, mounded, creeping, or cascading plants. Some shrubs and fewer trees, many of which are evergreen.

Seaside Areas: More plants seen in sheltered areas away from the salt spray, winds, and sandy soil. There are grasses, low-lying shrubs, and some rare durable trees that never grow to any real height. Few plants on the beach itself; there's usually a few hundred yards between the water and actual clumps of vegetation. Once some shelter is achieved, the plants thicken into real forests, about a thousand yards from the shore.

Wet Spots: Many plants adapt readily to areas with occasional standing water, including many weeds some shrubs, and willows, maples, and redwoods. In marshier places you find bulb plants and bald cypresses.

Next Column: Foraging: or My Character Ate What?