Category:Flora

All The Plants of Pern

Captured from the "All the Plants of Pern" website originally created and researched by Meani. In some cases, we have added detail to some of the information in her original work, but the hard work of going through the books to find what was mentioned as being on Pern has already been done. We thank her for her great work and this site will continue to credit her for all she has done for the RP Community as a whole. If others wish to reference this work in their own RP sites, they are welcome to do so.

Meani's Introduction

This is a complete list (minus any I might have overlooked by mistake) of all the plants that exist on Pern. Information was taken from all the novels (up to and including The Masterharper), as well as the short stories (up to the publication of The Runner of Pern) and the Dragonlover's Guide to Pern (which seems to be regarded as mainly canon. Any conflicts between the novels and the Guide are listed.) This list was mainly compiled for use in RPing, though anyone interested in plants might like to read through this list. All plants, such as grapes, asparagus, mint, etc. that have recognizable Terran names are assumed to be of Terran or bio-engineered Terran form, and have the same growth forms, habitat, and uses that they do on Earth.

Moriel, an apprentice weaver on Dragonsfire MOO, has developed a list of plants that can be used as dyes and has more in-depth info on what plants yield which dyes than listed here. You can find her site at www.geocities.com/anglinsbees/dye.html

If you spot a plant in a book I do not have listed, or any other info on plants that I might have missed, please e-mail me so I can update the list. Thanks to Elena, Tephra, and Elrhan for info that helped me make this page more accurate!

I have recently added outside information, mainly medical uses of many of the imported plants. Please use common sense and don't try any remedies listed here without consulting a physician. While drinking peppermint tea to quell an uneasy stomach may not be dangerous at all, many plants are more potent, and there is a fine line between dose and overdose. While the same information could be found in several different books on herbs and/or herbal healing, I used Lesley Bremness' 'Eyewitness Handbook: Herbs' and 'The Complete Book of Herbs' for the bulk of this information. The rest is mainly personal knowledge. It is quite possible that the plants the colonists brought with them were genetically altered before and/or after they arrived on Pern to produce a reliable level of the chemicals that are medically beneficial since they knew that sooner or later their conventional medicines would run out. It is also possible that some indigenous species were altered as well to be a reliable source of medicines. However, even with genetic altering, the potency of a particular crop depends on location and the weather conditions it was grown in. Therefore, it's my opinion that there is probably a masterhealer or 2 that analyze the harvested herbs for potency when applicable.

Enjoy! Meani

References

All references to worlds and characters based on Anne McCaffrey's fiction are copyright© Anne McCaffrey 1967,2000, all rights reserved, and used by permission of the author.

The Dragonriders of Pern® is registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, by Anne McCaffrey, used here with permission. Use or reproduction without a license is strictly prohibited

Key:

H=this plant is listed only in a historic manner, and may or may not currently exist on Pern. It can probably be safely assumed it still exists somewhere.

I=This plant is a known import to Pern from Earth

N=This plant is a known native to Pern

?=I was uncertain of the information and made an educated guess

• Converted to HTML by Shaddack, 11th April 1997.
• Saved to Triad by Suzee, 2019 for fear of it disappearing