Afterimage Hemlock is a tall indigo plant whose translucent leaves appear in several nearby positions before its stem visibly moves.
Appearance
The main stem is dark indigo and branches into many soft blue-gray fronds. Each divided leaf is accompanied by one or two paler copies offset by several centimeters, as though the plant were photographed during motion.
Black seed pods hang beneath the highest branches. The roots grow as a dense central knot surrounded by thin runners that end abruptly at the edge of the visible soil disturbance.
Afterimage effect
The pale leaf copies can appear before the solid leaf bends toward them. Slow-motion cameras do not reveal a continuous path between positions; one outline fades as another becomes solid.
Touch probes have contacted a pale copy on some tests and passed through it on others. Because the result cannot be repeated reliably, the Registry describes the plant as position-uncertain rather than moving or duplicating.
Reproduction
New shoots emerge as doubled curls. By the following inspection, only one stem usually remains, although the discarded position sometimes leaves roots with no plant attached.
Opened pods contain glossy black seeds arranged in two rows. A third empty row is visible inside every pod, but no matching seed has been recovered from the soil or surrounding air.
Black mark procedure
Survey teams place two boundary flags: one around the solid plant and one around the farthest visible afterimage. Residents remain outside both boundaries, even when the pale copies disappear.
No leaf, seed, or root is collected by hand. If a new afterimage appears beyond the outer flag, the path is closed and the Registry redraws the observation zone from a fixed camera station.