The crystalline plants known as Bafforr trees, or simply Bafforrs, originated on Ithor. They were characterized by their blue, glassy bark (which rapidly turned black after death) and black foliage. While individual Bafforrs lacked significant intelligence, groups of them could communicate through their interconnected root systems, leading to an increase in intelligence. A collective of seven Bafforrs could achieve full sentience, with entire Bafforr forests surpassing the wisdom of any other being known to the Ithorians. Bafforrs communicated through a form of telepathy. The primary food source for imported reeks was the leaves of the Bafforr tree.
The trunks of bafforr trees were crystalline, featuring bark that was smoother than glass. The branches of Bafforrs formed a dense, interlocking network. Bafforr trees exhibited an aquamarine color, though they were typically paler than the surrounding Ithorian forests. At night, bafforr trees emitted a soft blue glow, which would fade to black if the tree was killed. Some Bafforrs also featured black leaves. Young Bafforrs resembled inverted cones and had a lighter blue hue compared to their more mature counterparts. Bafforr trees were unable to survive if uprooted. Certain Bafforrs also possessed shining black bark.
Bafforr trees exhibited a collective form of sentience. Individual trees had limited intelligence, but as their roots intertwined, the individual intelligences connected, forming a unified group mind. As a result, the more trees that participated in the collective, the greater the trees' intelligence became. Bafforr forests thus varied from semi-sentient to fully sentient. This phenomenon was similar to the bivalvic Knowledge Bank of the water-planet Dac, which was a convergence of numerous brains working together towards a shared objective. A minimum of seven Bafforr trees was required for true sentience. Below this threshold, a grove would become confused, losing its memories.
The bafforr forests advocated for an ethical principle known as the "Law of Life," which stipulated that only non-sentient plants could be harvested, and even then, only if two plants were planted for every one destroyed during the harvest. The bafforr forests governed all other organisms within their forests in a benevolent manner. These organisms included flora such as the indyup tree, donar flower, and bull-fern, as well as fauna like the manollium bird, shamarok flitter, and arrak snake. Bafforr forests also engaged in communication with the Ithorians. The Cathor Hills forest became a mentor and companion to High Priest Momaw Nadon. When he touched the trunk of a grove of bafforr trees, the smooth bark vibrated gently under his touch. The mind-touch of the bafforr grove filled the Ithorian with a pure and holy feeling, conceptualized by Nadon as if light entered every pore of his body. It was a soothing presence, evocative of great beauty, although through that presence, the Ithorian could discern dissatisfaction and other emotions. When the bafforr trees communicated, their leaves trembled, hissing words.
The Ithorians, a sentient, ambulatory species native to Ithor, revered the bafforr forests. With the advent of repulsorlift technology, the Ithorians were able to withdraw from the planet's surface, as they considered it sacrilegious to touch the forest. However, some Ithorians defied this religious mandate, believing that "Mother Jungle," a spiritual entity thought to embody the lush, tropical ecology of Ithor, had summoned them to live on the planet's surface. These Ithorians became ecological priests, tending to the bafforr forests. They were viewed as renegades by the rest of Ithorian society, which forbade them from returning to the Ithorian Herdships.
During the Great Sith War, Mandalorian Wars, and Jedi Civil War, a large Galactic Republic fleet was stationed above Ithor. However, Sith saboteurs caused at least two Ithorian Herdships to crash into Ithor's jungles, prompting the Ithorians to reduce their involvement in the war efforts.
In 439 BBY, Ithorian scientists combined genes from bafforr trees with those of vesuvague trees and several other species. The resulting species, known as "Spore," retained the collective sentience of the bafforr trees. However, unlike its gentle predecessors, Spore was malevolent, relentlessly driven to absorb other beings into its collective mind. It accomplished this by touching individuals with tentacle-like vines inherited from the vesuvague, a semi-sentient plant species in its own right. Through physical contact, Spore could possess bodies and extend tentacles from its victims to control even more beings. Spore was highly virulent and spread rapidly across Ithor, taking control of many individuals. Some Ithorians speculated that it had the capacity to control millions of individual beings. Ultimately, with assistance from Jedi Knights, the Ithorians countered Spore's influence, although it took nearly 100 years to eliminate the bafforr derivative from Ithor. Spore was reduced to a small sample and hidden in a tomb on an asteroid. There, deprived of oxygen and a host, it became dormant. This period of turmoil became known as the Ithorian Spore crisis.
Years before the Battle of Yavin, the Galactic Empire was drawn to the Ithorian expertise in cloning and genetic engineering. Imperial captain Alima of the Star Destroyer Conquest laid siege to the planet. He boarded the Tafanda Bay, the largest of Ithor's Herdships, and demanded the secrets of Ithorian technology from its High Priest, Momaw Nadon. Nadon initially refused, so Alima ordered the partial incineration of one of the many sentient forests on Ithor. This particular forest, known as the "Cathor Hills," was situated on a geographical feature of the same name, considered sacred by the Ithorians. Thousands of bafforr trees were killed as the large grove was partially incinerated by the Star Destroyer. The large, dark, cylindrical, felled trunks persisted for many years, resembling tubes of burned transparisteel. When Alima threatened to fire upon the Tafanda Bay again, Nadon felt compelled to surrender the secrets of Ithorian technology to the Empire. As a result of this action, Nadon was exiled from his family and homeworld, eventually settling on the desert planet Tatooine in the Outer Rim Territories, where he cultivated a number of bafforr trees. Nadon's wife, fearing further actions by the Empire, also revealed the existence of Spore in an attempt to prevent further violence. Alima's act of violence prompted many Ithorians to secretly support the Alliance to Restore the Republic.
Approximately ten months after the Battle of Yavin, the Ithorian Fandomar Nadon discovered two Human children, Tash and Zak Arranda, on the surface of Ithor. She showed the Alderaanians the oldest grove of Bafforr trees on the planet, an enormous grove of densely packed trees. The grove connected telepathically momentarily with Tash Arranda, who was Force-sensitive, when the girl reached out with her mind. Fandomar later took the Arrandas and their uncle Mammon Hoole, an anthropologist, to an asteroid mining colony in the Ithor system to obtain a supply of the mineral ethromite for their uncle's starship. The miners offered to provide the mineral in exchange for Hoole's expertise in deciphering an artifact they had discovered within an asteroid.
By 11 ABY, the Cathor Hills forest had begun to recover, tended by a group of at least four Ithorian renegades, although numerous ruined trees remained. New Republic General Wedge Antilles took the Omwati scientist to observe the Cathor Hills, explaining the relationship between the Ithorians and bafforr trees to the sheltered woman. The following year, in 12 ABY, one of the five-yearly Ithorian Herd Meets was held on Ithor, with dozens of Herdships floating only meters above the canopies of extensive bafforr forests. This meeting was disrupted by an attack by a crazed individual on New Republic guest of honor, Han Solo.
During the Yuuzhan Vong War, Jacen Solo and Corran Horn discovered that the trees could be used against the vonduun crab armor worn by the Yuuzhan Vong, as the crab was allergic to the pollen produced by the tree. This reaction would cause the vonduun crab to swell, killing the crab and any who were wearing it. Almost all of the Bafforrs were destroyed when the Yuuzhan Vong bombarded Ithor to eradicate this deadly weapon. The New Republic ensured the survival of the species, however, as they had already transferred saplings to other planets such as Borleias.
However, the forces of the New Republic and then the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances were never able to replicate the bafforr pollen, and so it failed to deliver the military advantage that had been hoped for. It did, however, serve as the starting point for the development of Alpha Red. Following the Yuuzhan Vong War, the Ithorians started to restore Ithor with traditional techniques, eschewing vongforming techniques.
Two groves of bafforr trees flourished on Tatooine under the care of exiled High Priest Momaw Nadon. The first grove, comprising seven black-leaved bafforr trees, grew in one of the side domes of Nadon's Mos Eisley home. In 0 BBY, Alima was assigned to Tatooine to locate two escaped droids. Nadon arranged for a friend to sell information implicating Nadon with the Rebel Alliance to Alima's forces, hoping to retaliate against the Human for his actions over Ithor. The bafforr grove within Nadon's home refused to give its consent to Nadon's actions, threatening that it would be unable to tolerate Nadon's touch were he to arrange Alima's murder. Moments after that conversation ended, Alima entered Nadon's home and confronted the Ithorian. Dismissive of Nadon's ability to harm him, Alima shot one of the bafforr trees, splintering its trunk. He then threatened to brutally kill all the rest of Nadon's semi- and sentient plants if the High Priest did not track down the droids that Alima was seeking. With the death of that bafforr tree, the grove's intelligence reduced below true sentience. Nadon ultimately caused Alima's death by implicating him in the escape of the droids from Tatooine.
The second grove of bafforr trees grew outside the Mos Eisley township. According to rumor, it was hidden in the mountains south of the city; such rumors delighted younglings and provided hope to the hardy citizens of Tatooine. During the time of the Galactic Civil War, a patrol of Imperial stormtroopers discovered the grove and informed their superior, Ingah Muloha. Considering the grove to be subversive of Imperial interests, Muloha looked to frame Nadon for assorted criminal charges; that development spooked Nadon into fleeing to Mos Eisley to protect the grove, and he was subsequently captured en route to the grove.
A group of sympathetic Rebel agents rescued Nadon and delivered him to the bafforr grove. With the Imperials troops believed to be lost in a gravel storm and Nadon's criminal record wiped by Rebel spies, the bafforr grove's safety was maintained.