Botanica (BM)
- Botanica is a Maximal from the Beast Machines portion of the Beast Era.
The Transformers have taken on myriad alternate forms over the years, but Botanica remains unique: she transforms into a mobile alien plant creature. She is competent and powerful, as well as a bit mystical, and has a strong connection to the planet and affinity for growing things. A scientist first and foremost, she can be fastidious and fussy in her dedication to her work -- sometimes to the point of overlooking the things that matter most important in life.
Fiction
Beast Machines
- Voice actor: Kathleen Barr (US), Atsuko Tanaka (Japan)
Botanica captained the same sort of exploration mission that the Axalon originally undertook. Landing on a planet dominated by plant life, including the mobile carnivorous variety, her crew adopted forms based upon them.
When they received the distress signal from Cybertron sent by Megatron she returned home and was shot down. She was apparently driven mad and trapped in plant-creature mode by Megatron's virus and did not come to herself until she was reformated to be technorganic. After this time she joined with Primal's team to help save Cybertron with a particular focus on the orchard they were attempting to grow.
Botanica eventually formed a romantic relationship with the Maximal Rattrap.
Trivia
- Botanica is a rarity, in that she was a major recurring heroic character in a Transformers television show, but was apparently never intended to have a toy.
- Uniqueness: Assuming the Transformer seen in silhouette in the flashback in Home Soil is also Botanica, she remains the only plant-based Transformer ever seen in the canon. She states the other members of her crew also took plant modes, so she's not literally unique. However, judging by the reactions of Optimus Primal and the other Maximals, they have either never heard of "Plantformers" before, or they are extremely rare.
