Lumnispice

Background 

Lumni lichen is a fungus that pr oduces one of the rarest spice which is lumnispice. This spice was so expensive that many people in the star wars galaxy are competing to find it. Two planet were found to produce large amounts of these organisms which are Hoth and Corulag. Lumnispice are also very difficult to harvest. After the Battle of Yavin, Luke Skywalker went to Hoth to escape pursuing TIE fighters. Later, the pirate Raskar captured Skywalker and Han Solo above Hoth, and Solo brought them to a deep chasm on the planet's equator. There they saw a cave possessing rare lumni-spice lichens.

Biology 



Appearance/ Physiology 

The fungus rises to the tip as if like a horn. It is possible that these fungi belong to the phylum Basidiomycota because of their cap at the base. The whole cap is hornlike. On these cap, there are red spots which may be lumnispice themselves. There are also some outgrowths of small fungi like structures near the main horn like cap which do not look like the fungus itself but may have been a morphological development as the fungus grows. The spots on these miniature outgrowth are colored black in contrast with the spots of the much larger fungus. The color of the fungus ranges from yellow to green. Aside from that lumnispice fungus has a twisted body and are anchored firmly to the ground with rhizoids. These fungus may be capable of bio luminescence because as the explorers found them they were bright structures in caves. These caves are homes also to dragon slugs. The presence of the dragon slugs which makes the caves as their natural habitat and the hoth’s harsh environment make it difficult to harvest the spice. The fact that they are in caves is that they are also not exposed to much sunlight. These types of fungi thrive well in very wet conditions which make the caves a suitable environment for the lumni lichen to grow. Hoth is an icy planet filled with glaciers but there are few volcanoes that exist. Thee volcanoes provide mineral deposits to some places in Hoth, These minerals provided rich nutrients to allow growth of these fungal organism. Fungal organisms grow on dead material or they act as decomposers. Fungi may have grow on dead remains of Dragon slugs because there were no other source of dead matter around the fungus.

Bibliography

“Planetary survey: Hoth” torsyndicate.com. torysindicate n.d. 3. October.2011

“Starwars Hoth “ allrite.net allrite.n.d.3.October.2011