"This then is the source of man’s spreading across the islands, the Cloudseed. Amazing how so humble seeming a seed could give rise to the mighty Cloudwood trees is it not?
In form, the seed is perhaps the size of a man’s thumb tip and superficially similar in shape to that of an acorn. The slender nut is deepest brown covered with fine silver fur - both of which have significant use in potions (see chapter XVII), and if tasted the nut is potable though having a bitter and acrid taste. The nut is oddly ‘heavy’ for its size though this is perhaps a misnomer, for it is more that it resists movement whether up or down rather than having any actual weight of its own.
The cap is formed by two curved leaves which fan out from the nut and form a natural rotor causing the seed to spin easily as it falls - or rises. The size of the cap leaves varies tremendously within even a single cloudwood tree; the cap-leaves are slightly lighter than air and so the larger the leaves the more likely that a seed will rise and vice versa. The monk Malikai theorized that the higher the altitude of the island the smaller the leaves, see chapter CXI for details of this theory and the rebuttal by Olaf Bjonssen".
- Excerpt from, “A Basic Introduction to Botany,“ by Divad Bellam