The Lýth’bél plant (Lýth’bél), Styrásh for the "Love Berry", is a popular fruit-bearing plant that grows in warm to mildly cool temperatures, which makes them available in almost all parts of Santharia as well as places in Northern Sarvonia. The temperature in which the Lýth’bél grows defines what color this fruit will become and tends to have slight effects on taste. These juicy fruits vary from a bright red to a bluish purple in color and are usually round in shape. Lýth’bél plants are a necessity to any home garden.
|Image description. The Lýth'bél, also called "Love Berry" as seen on a fence at the Helmondsshire. Picture made by Eshóh.|
Appearance. The Lýth'bél
plant is known for its strong smell that reminds
many of the taste of its fruit. The stem of this plant has small hairs on it.
When growing, the plant has a tendency to spread out and is considered to be a
vine by many gardeners. Most people supply stakes or trellises for this plant to
grow up on, which both helps to keep the fruit off the ground but also to ally
the Lýth’bél plants to be placed closer together.
The leaves of the Lýth’bél plant have elegantly jagged edges in which each separate point comes to a rounded curve. Leaves may have as many as nine of these points, and the leaves usually remind people of an elongated star. These leaves usually grow off the stem in separate, smaller branches, causing them to clump together in numbers of up to seven, though five is the average. The leaves are usually colored in shades of deep green.
The yellow flower of the Lýth’bél plant opens in the month of the Changing Winds (méh'avashín, méh'avashín) and the month of the Singing Bird (álé'veván, alé'veván). These delicate saffron flowers have about eight petals of average that are covered in yellow pollen. In the center of the flower, an orange protrusion wanders up and comes to three points at the stop. This protrusion is usually a tad more orange than the petals of the flower. 40 to 75 after the flower petals are shed away, ripe Lýth’béls form.
Territory. All Lýth’béls starts out as small, light green circles. The color and taste of the ripe Lýth’bél usually depends on the climate in which it’s grown. Lýth’bél plants grow in the more southern reaches of Santharia, where the weather is warmer, producing Lýth’béls that are a bright red color. These fruits tend to have a sweetly acidic taste. However, if grown in the colder Northern reaches of Santharia, Lýth’béls tend to become a bluish purple color and have a pleasantly more sour taste to them.
The Lýth’béll plant can thrive in almost any warm or mildly cool location, though they enjoy lots of sunlight and water. However, experienced gardeners advise not to over-water these plants. Snow is not a friend to these plants and can do much damage to them, which is why most gardeners up north grow these plants in greenhouses. If tended with care and given good sunlight and the right amount of water, Lýth’bél plants can produce 9 to 14 ods of fruit each! Lýth’béls should be eaten a few days after ripening as they will go rotten very quickly.
The Lýth’bél plant is a very domesticated fruit and is rarely seen in the wild. Many will grow these plants in small gardens, as they do not take up much space if given a stake or trellis to grow upon. They are most easily grown in Santharia and some parts of Northern Sarvonia, usually between the Narfost Plain and the Heath of Wilderon. They may also be planted further north, in which case greenhouses are required to keep the snow off these plants, as it will damage them.
Usages. Lýth’béls can be used to make a variety of things. They are commonly tossed into salads to give it more flavor and a brighter appearance. They are also made into Lýth’bél paste, which can be used to make certain cakes, as well as Lýth’bél sauce, a necessary component in making certain noodle dishes. Lýth’bél is often given to sick to make them feel better. It is also commonly thought that eating this fruit can improve one’s love-life.
Myth/Lore. Lýth’béls are commonly thought of to improve love lives. It is often said that feeding a Lýth’bél to someone you love with cause them to fall in love with you, and thus many use it to hint to their heartthrobs about how they feel. This belief sprouted from a far older one that said that Etherus created the plant himslef or that he somehow manipulated one of Jeyriall’s plant to make it one that brings desire, love and lust. Though this is the root of the myth, even people who don’t believe in Avá and Her 12 Gods and Goddesses often are superstituous enough to regard the myth as true.
Information provided by Rayne Avalotus