Pseudo-coral
The towers of skump consisted of jalajek pseudo-coral living in a symbiotic relationship with warpweed. The warpweed drew seawater from the depths and excreted it again at the heights, complete with the plankton on which the pseudo-coral fed. Thus the Spliars were covered with a perpetual dripping, drenching sheen of seawater, which made them glisten in the sun like vast top-heavy towers of molten, dripping glass.
The coral sustained the warpweed, the weed watered the coral, and both organisms thus lived largely free of the eaters and browsers of the depths. Many sea-creatures had such mutually advantageous living arrangements, and, from observations of sealife, the philosophers of Chalakanesia's classical period had constructed beautiful logical political theories of harmonious cooperation. This had not saved the classical period from ending in a welter of blood, fear, torture, famine, paranoia and mutilating death. [EoH Ch7]