The Desert Dandelion
Taraxcum desertum
Urgh’ul-ad-Rhizum

To a vast majority of Enayra, the desert dandelion is nothing more than a simple flower. A pestiferous weed, in fact. It manages to survive the arid and merciless conditions of the harsh Altimaran deserts. There isn’t a place in Altimara it does not grow, though it has not been found outside the desert kingdom.

However, the desert dandelion is known to be far more deadly and dangerous to Enayra’s largest and oldest race: dragons.

The dragons refer to the plant as death’s dandelion, or Urgh’ul-ad-Rhizum, the Flower of Urgh’ul–Urgh’ul being a death spirit of the dragons, who takes the souls of the dead and guides them into the encompassing winds of Viinaeszoth’s wings to be carried into the bosom of the Earth Mother once more.

The milk of the desert dandelion is dangerous to dragons when ingested specifically. Dragons use magic to convert their highly volatile and acid stomach juices into fuel for their fire, but when that complex bodily fluid comes into contact with the sap of the desert dandelion, it undergoes chemical changes.

In doses of ten millilitres or less, per three-hundred pounds of bodyweight, a dragon’s stomach acid becomes corrosive, and will cause ulcers of varying severity. In doses of fifteen to twenty millilitres, per three-hundred pounds of bodyweight, the corrosives increases to the point it can burn through the stomach lining, and through the dragon itself.

There is not much that can tear or cut through a dragon’s stomach, and it’s incredibly resistant to fire and can be sewn to make a watertight enclosure. It is an incredibly durable and tough organ, and was prized, in the earliest days of human-dragon contact and conflict, as a prized item to own among early humans. A dragon stomach bag, or cloak, were deemed impenetrable by anything but the strongest of magics.

However, the death dandelion at it’s most deadly is administered in doses of twenty-seven millilitres or more per three-hundred pounds of bodyweight. This dosage will change the state of the stomach acid from liquid into a gas. The gas expands incredibly quickly, and has been recorded, in the few times this plant has been weaponized, to cause dragons to burst.

They do not literally explode, but it has caused their durable stomachs to expand so rapidly, and so large, that the organs burst through muscle, other organs, ruptured past the ribcage, and in some cases, even split skin and scales alike to burst forth from the body.

It should be noted, however, that in the darker days of human-dragon relations, it had been theorized (though proof remains scarce if it had been tested) that a dragon could be made to explode it it were to breathe flame during this state of extreme distress. Igniting the gas in it’s stomach, and killing the dragon.

A small side note: the dose for a less-than-three-hundred pound dragon is the same as if the dragon were three-hundred pounds.