Planet
Bulbara
The planet of giant flowers: corollas as wide as villages, a luminous pollen that lights the nights, and seasons that change the colour of the whole world.
On Bulbara, everything that grows is a flower. There are no trees and no grasses: only stems as thick as towers, crowned with corollas as wide as villages. When they open all together, the planet changes colour in a single night.
The great corollas
The largest flowers of Bulbara measure nearly three hundred metres from petal to petal. They close at night and hold whatever settled on them until morning — insects, birds, and now and then an incautious explorer. At first light they open and release their prisoners, unharmed but covered in pollen.
The luminous pollen
The pollen of Bulbara glows. At night it floats in golden sheets at head height and lights the valleys better than a moon. That light draws the hommolins, small furred animals that feed on it and end up glowing themselves: one sees them pass like lanterns between the stems.