The expanded universe had sentient plant species in it as well. Mind you I think a plant based species would be really difficult for any animal species to defeat if they hadn’t reached a technological level where they could create, say fire. Space Neanderthals better watch out.
I’m still amazed that I can look at much of what Disney is putting out for Star Wars right now and think that I’ve done better with my fan fiction in keeping consistent with what went before. Plus unlike Disney I didn’t think that having to keep with EU canon as well would be too difficult. In fact I was even able to create stories set roughly at the same time as the Wasted republic stories are going to be without ripping up any established canon that I know of (although I may have pushed the limits a bit).