# Chapter 56: The Settler King
*Arboreus divides the world between his sons, establishing the great plant dynasties*
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## The Great Division
When Arboreus, son of Tracheus, claimed
His throne among the ancient forest lords,
He looked upon the lands as yet unnamed
And spoke these wise and far-resounding words:
"My sons, the world spreads wide before our sight,
With fertile valleys, mountains capped with snow,
Each realm shall serve a different kind of might,
Each path shall let a different glory grow."
To Lycos bold he gave the power of spores,
Released like dust upon the waiting wind,
While Ginkgon claimed the leafy, branching shores
Where megaphylls in sunlight would rescind.
Thus did the settler king divide his realm
Between two sons to rule with different helm.
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## The Spore-Bearer's Domain
Great Lycos spread his countless spores abroad
Like golden powder dancing on the breeze,
And from those tiny seeds blessed by his God
Arose two sons beneath the ancient trees.
Isolagos the first, who learned to part
His spores 'tween male and female, each their own,
Within his city, built with greatest art,
He raised both sons and daughters fully grown.
Lycopodion the second claimed his right
To build the first tree ever seen on earth,
A scale tree reaching up toward the light,
Of such immense and awe-inspiring girth.
The club-moss ancestor, his name lives on
In Lycopodium powder, fire's dawn.
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## The Children of Isolagos
From spore-divided Isolagos came
Two sons of vastly different destiny:
Bold Quill who sought the underwater fame,
And wise Sellagine, master of the sea.
Sellagine's children learned to creep and crawl
Their leaves across the forest floor below,
In drought they died, but when the rains would fall
They lived again with resurrection's glow.
The Quillworts from noble Quill descend,
Their microphylls reach tall toward the sky,
No stomata their surfaces defend -
Through roots they breathe, their spores where waters lie.
Underground their stems in darkness grow
While leaves above catch morning's golden glow.
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## The Megaphyll Master
But Ginkgon chose a different path to tread:
His leaves branched out in patterns two by two,
Megaphyllic glory crowned his head
As through the forest depths his lineage grew.
From him came forth bold Phyllon as his heir,
Who mastered all the arts of leafy might,
And Phyllon's sons would spread both far and near
To claim their kingdoms in the dawning light.
Two sons had Phyllon in the days of old:
Pteridos the brave, Gymnos the wise,
Their names in plant lore ever shall be told
As founders of the kingdoms of the skies.
From their great loins would spring the fern and tree
That rule the forest's vast complexity.
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## The Line of Pteridos
Pteridos the fern-father had two sons:
Bold Horsa of the puzzlegrass and spear,
And wise Euspor, from whom the lineage runs
Of all the fronds we still hold dear.
From Horsa came great Equis, he who found
Fair Puzella swimming in the stream,
Their gametophytes merged without a sound
To birth a dynasty beyond a dream.
But Equis faced a choice both hard and stark:
Keep megaphylls or join with Lycos' way?
He chose the path of simple leaves and dark,
One vein alone would serve him every day.
In silicon armor he encased his town
While spores spread far beyond the forest's crown.
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## The Seasonal Cycle
Wise Equis learned the rhythm of the year
And built his kingdom on the wheel of time:
In spring when snowmelt made the waters clear
He raised horsetails in patterns sublime.
No chlorophyll these springtime children bore,
Just spores released in clouds across the land,
While through the earth their nutrients they store
For summer's work by their creator's hand.
When summer came he tore the horsetails down
And built puzzlegrass in their sacred place,
With chlorophyll of green and leafy crown
To gather sunlight's energizing grace.
Thus seasons turned in Equis' grand design:
Spring spores, summer grass, in rhythm fine.
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## The Fern Dynasty
From wise Euspor came branches of the tree
That split 'tween Adderos and Fernando,
Each claiming their own realm of destiny
Where different kinds of fronds would grow.
Adderos sired Ophios the strange,
Who built but one great leaf of mighty size,
And Psilos, dwelling in the mountain range,
Who needed not leaves beneath the skies.
The adder's-tongue from brave Ophios came,
While whisk ferns trace to Psilos as their sire,
Each keeping alive their ancestor's name
Through spore and frond and roots of living fire.
Fernando spread his fronds in patterns wide
With Maratton standing close beside his side.
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## The Great Swamp Settlement
Maratidus and Leptos were the sons
That noble Maratton brought into the world,
Ten thousand spores the first one always runs
While hundred spores the second's fronds unfurled.
Together they became the fern-lords true,
The ancestors of all the fronds we see,
From forest floor to canopy of blue
Their children spread in vast complexity.
And as these sons of brave Arboreus
Built swamplands by the Mississippi's shore,
They prepared the way, unknowing thus,
For those who'd walk where none had walked before.
For here the sons of bold Osticthus
Would leave the sea and claim the land for us.
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## The Settler's Legacy
Thus did Arboreus the settler king
Divide the world 'tween spore and megaphyll,
And from his choice would countless blessings spring
That serve the forest kingdoms still.
The club-moss and the fern, the tree so tall,
The puzzlegrass and horsetails of the spring,
From his great line they came to rule them all
And honor their ancestral king.
Though seasons pass and eras come and go,
And mighty forests rise and fall to dust,
The legacy of him who chose to sow
His kingdom wide remains a sacred trust.
For in each spore and in each frond unfurled
Lives on the dream of his divided world.
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*Thus did Arboreus establish the great plant dynasties that would rule the forests of the earth, preparing the swamplands where vertebrates would first venture from sea to land.*