Ferries

Ferries split from their ancestor and diversified into a genus of bushes, shrubs, and small trees found all over Wallace and the surrounding islands, as well as in Koseman. Sun-loving flora, they are common in shrublands and savannas and make up many of the trees in the intermediate stages of ecological succession in the woodland biomes. They provide fleshy edible berries for fauna to eat, which in turn allow them to readily spread to new biomes through feces. They are flowering flora which depend on pollination from fauna such as xenobees, for which they provide nectar.

Ferries have a number of differences from their ancestor. The trunk is generally narrower, allowing faster growth. Their branches are lignified and form a broader, flatter shape, and only the leaves shed over winter. Ferry leaves are a little broader and less needle-like, allowing them to catch more light. Leaves sprout from a central woody stem in a frond-like shape which might be either bilateral or glide-symmetrical. The branches still periodically shed, mostly older ones dropping as the newer ones cut them off from light. This is why ferries still retain the distinct bark texture and "lip" of other carnofern-derivatives.

Ferry flowers have three petals, which are often forked. The petals vary in color between species and even inside a single species, with common colors including coral pink, bright blue, white, and lime green. For each of the three petals there are three clusters of stamens, which produce the puffy spores, and in the center there is a cluster of ovaries each with their own pistil. Once pollinated, the petals fall off and the ovaries grow into a cluster of berries.

Ferry berries are fleshy and juicy and may be either sweet, tart, or both. They are purple until they ripen, at which point they will take on a color visibly distinct from the leaves, usually orange, yellow, or green. Occasionally, they might appear to stay purple, but in fact take on a color using light in the ultraviolet spectrum, making them only conspicuous to jewel-eyed saucebacks and other creatures with such good color vision. A few species have bright pink berries which are poisonous to non-plents, as plents are the least likely to destroy the seeds by chewing them. Theoretically, jewel-eyed saucebacks are better seed-distributors than plents because they also do not chew seeds and their through guts can hold seeds for much longer (thus increasing the chances that seeds will be dispersed far away), but at the time of evolution there were considerably more berry-eating plents than saucebacks, which is why plent specialization still evolved. Tall rainforest and riverside species produce the biggest fruits, as they have plenty of water to do so, though they are notably not especially common in rainforests even without the shade of obsiditrees due to the low organic content of the soil.

There are many species of ferry, and the genus speciates readily. Often, many species will exist in the same biome, producing different fruits favored by different fauna. They come in bush, shrub, and tree form and require fertile soil to grow. Ferry bushes are common in shrublands and will populate an expanding or recovering forest before small trees arrive. Shrubs, too, populate the shrublands and young growth forests, and they are commonly found in wetlands and along intermittent rivers as well. The tallest ferry trees, though quite small as far as trees go, survive in young forests as long as they have not yet been taken over by shade trees. Ferry bushes and shrubs are also found scattered in the open plains. The season in which they bloom and produce fruit varies to avoid competition with one another, with only the late fall and winter for deciduous species being off-limits, though spring, early fall, and the wet season are the most common fruiting seasons.

Tropical ferry species are “everpurple” and always have some leaves, though they still shed them regularly, and in colder regions leaves must be shed annually. Leaves turn a pale orangish-pink color before shedding. Some species are able to survive high in the mountains with tougher, more bristle-like leaves, but they are not especially suited to year-round icy conditions. That said, however, very small ferry bush species have nonetheless managed to colonize the subpolar tundra, laying leafless and dormant most of the year and taking advantage of snowmelt during the brief summer growing season. They are absent from deserts, apart from the aforementioned tundra.

Ferries usually sprout in the wet season or spring thaw regardless of when their fruiting season is. Small species reach maturity within their first year while the largest ones may take 3 or 4. They usually only live for about 10-15 years, but some larger species can live even longer in proper conditions.