others he could find no name for : one whose thin trunks split at their base into a cluster of forking , fingerlike protrusions ; another with deep red , nearly black bark and pale , lip-shaped nodules running in a pattern up and down its sides ; another that seemed like an aluminum pole , so straight and shining it grew ; another that seemed covered in a rippling fur until the sun grew strong enough and justin saw it was not fur , but an interlocking jacket of large , beetle-like bugs .