Uathirtch

The Uathirtch Tree is a unique flora tree that exists exclusively in the northern White Wood Forest of Winhem. It is most famously known as the tree that is used for the creation of Skerricks, the Avakaronian form of coin currency.

Appearance

The tree itself is very grand. It caps at around 40 feet tall, with massive branches that extend widely, rather than tall, creating a dome around the trunk that nearly touches the ground. The trunk is very thick, with a circumference that can range to ten feet at full maturity. The bark of the tree is rough and scalloped, and presents in a very beautiful golden brown color that shines even more golden with a hint of direct sunlight. This color is constant throughout the tree, but more pronounced on the actual trunk of the tree, becoming a darker, less vibrant, brown in the highest and thinnest reaches of branches.

The trees branches are absolutely covered in bright green leaves. At budding the leaves are a light, but bright, yellow-green and at full maturity they are a deep emerald. This color is where the Emerald Skerrick gets its name. Each branch has hundreds of these leaves that are usually pretty small, and oval in shape. The largest leaves only grow to be a few inches long. Instead the tree focuses on a massive quantity of leaves for photosynthesis, rather than large, but sparse, ones. These leaves, however, turn yellow – then brown, in the Fall season and drop off the branches. Therefore, the tree is bare at the end of Fall and beginning of the Winter Season.

However, near mid Winter the tree begins to bloom again, this time with flowers rather than leaves. these flowers are a vibrant pink color at maturity. They have around five or six petals, depending on the flower, with a tiny light pink center. Much like the leaves, these flowers grow to a numerous number, fully filling the emptiness of the branches until the entire tree is a shocking pink in contrast with the bare white birch trees it is surrounded by. The petals have a circular shape, coming to a small, rounded, point at the end. Each fully formed flower is about the size of ones palm. These flowers often serve as emergency food for herbivore and omnivore animals suffering in the winter. They are said to have a rather bland taste, with a hint of sweet nectar. These flowers die off by the time Winter ends, and Spring welcomes new bright green buds of returning leaves.

Rigenic Properties

While this tree is a unique flora, and therefore created by the mutation of common Siliren flora during The Change Days, it holds to particular or known magical effects. The only difference, Rigenically, this tree holds compared to common flora is a unique spike in Rigen, meaning that this tree holds more Rigen in its body than a common flor tree of similar size would. While this means nothing for the normal person, magic users, especially aurors, can sense the difference. This also means that the location these trees inhabit produces a large Rigen field than an area of forest that holds only common flora, the field being larger the more Uathirtch trees there are.

The inclusion of pieces of Uathirtch inside the Skerrick coin gives the item a Rigen aura. Naturally, non living, or dead, things do not have an aura. However, the process of encasing the tree sample in glass allows the piece to be preserved and retain its natural Rigen aura. Skilled aurors may even be able to tell the relative age of a Skerrick coin based on the remaining Rigen aura it holds. While the glass preserves the sample, it does not preserve the Rigen forever, and the Rigen slowly escapes until it is completely gone, but this process can take decades.