Chimera blossom

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	This page contains information regarding Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and thus may contain spoilers.

The chimera blossom or chimera weed (scientific name Chimeralaca oleracea) was a rare species of flowering plant. It was distributed sparsely around the Milky Way Galaxy, including on the planet Kenfori, and naturally grew as a weed among flora and fauna.

The chimera blossom was rumored to contain a chemical compound with a universal ability to move invasive molecules through cell membranes. This had applications in genetic engineering, by facilitating the insertion of foreign DNA to create hybrid organisms, but also made the flower potentially hazardous to handle without respiratory and dermal protection. The plant was edible and a rich source of several vitamins and minerals.

Chimera blossoms were valued as a traditional medicinal herb on many worlds around Klingon space, and used to treat maladies such as hypotension and diaphorous ceti syndrome.

In the 23rd century, the Federation investigated the chimera blossom for its medicinal and nutritional value. An agricultural research facility on Kenfori used chimera blossoms to develop an agent that could incorporate genes from a native perennial moss into crop plants to improve their hardiness. When the Klingon Empire invaded the planet at the start of the Federation-Klingon War in 2257, the agent was released and transformed all personnel, Federation and Klingon, within the facility into mindlessly aggressive "zombies".

In 2261, the USS Enterprise crew sought the chimera blossom as a means of controlling Captain Marie Batel's resurgent Gorn egg infection. As the only known available source was on Kenfori, to which access had been restricted since the Klingon War, Captain Christopher Pike and Doctor Joseph M'Benga embarked on an off-the-books mission to retrieve the blossom. Despite running afoul of the zombies and a Klingon party led by Bytha within the abandoned research facility, they managed to secure a single sample and return to the Enterprise. However, Pike was dismayed to learn that M'Benga's treatment involved integrating Gorn genetics into Batel, not eliminating it. (SNW: "Shuttle to Kenfori")