Karen Anderson, who had remained quiet from sheer, stomach-affecting anticipation, was now throwing what could only be called a fit. Her voice was  being raised at any security officer nearby, and she was beginning to suspect they were taking shifts. 
[b]"If I'm not allowed to take samples, or even [i]touch[/i] the wildlife, why the [i]fuck[/i] was I even asked to come along?! Why do you [i]fucking[/i] need a xenobiologist on the ship anyways if I'm not allowed to do my [i]fucking[/i] job?!"[/b]
The cursing was generally uncharacteristic, or so she kept telling herself. Indeed, this was definitely not how she wanted her first major impression on the security staff, let alone the Chief of Security. However, it was the only way to express how pissed she was at the current situation. There was life to investigate and science to do. Completely. Alien. Life. Yet all she was allowed to do was sit and watch the boring geologists work with theories refined centuries ago, on samples that contained nothing not found on Earth. So, instead of putting up with that, she yelled.
[b]"Don't walk away from me young man! If I'm going to have three days of my life [i]wasted[/i], you can spare an hour. But no, look at me still talking when there's science to do! I've experiments to run, there is research to be done, on these things that are so alive!"[/b]
It was obvious that the security guard in front of her wasn't really paying attention, so she began the walk towards the geologists, figuring it should at least be marginally interesting. Each step lost some of the force and speed of the last as she drifted both to a stop, and into thought about what she had been allowed to observe. 

The first things which had impressed Karen were the facsimiles of trees. Well, facsimile was incorrect, since it could not reasonably be mimicking them. Still, the resemblance was uncanny from a distance, with their sizes in the deep "woods" be comparable to the great Sequoias which had once grown in California. However, the key difference was that instead of wood, or any organic material (chemical definition or otherwise), they consisted of some sort of rock and had countless small holes. Their most immediate counterpart on Earth would have been termites, though the exact material and texture was visibly different. 
The second things which had impressed Karen were the spatial equivalent of leaves. The greenery here was placed similarly as on Earth, so far as the "trees" were concerned, but was found nowhere else. Indeed, there was no equivalent to grass, or bushes, or other foliage... Or animals. On close examination, the region was pretty desolate. Karen had figured that there was too little information for conjecture at the time, and refocused on what did exist. Instead of leaves, there were structures more akin to veins or pipes. They attached to the "branches," using the structures as a sort of scaffolding. From there, smaller veins branched between those, and smaller between both. In the end, it formed an exceedingly complex web, with a thin, green membrane filling the spaces between the veins, like a paper banner between two poles. There were exceptions, but Karen had nowhere near enough information to figure out what, if any, rules applied to those.

By now, Karen was fully stopped, simply standing in place and thinking, just ten feet or so away from the geological equipment. It would be too much to claim her mind raced, but it was certainly abuzz, drawing connections between what was seen here and what was left behind on Earth. She began attempting to name parts of this new life, wondering if it would be wise to draw on the naming conventions of plants. "Veins" would stay, since it applied to both plants and animals, but she couldn't do anything remotely precise until she knew what related to what, if anything at all. Cursing her lack of prerogative, she instead began pondering why they seemed to similar to leaves on Earth, even if only at first glance. 

These thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of her second major puzzle, the new species of... Insects? She would [i]really[/i] need to take the similarities issue seriously.