Brickbark Ferine

It has three primary branches, with three secondary branches per branch. The primary branches curve inward towards each other, with the secondary branches curving outward. The purple needle-like "leaves" of its ancestor have become coarse and bristle-like. The bristles are scratchy but not so sharp as its ancestor's needles, so their texture is something like a doormat. Each bristle is about 2 mm in diameter, but length varies. These bristles are arranged in dense, brush-like clumps, with six clumps per secondary branch.

It does not lose its branches in winter, but it does lose the black stalks that bear its flowers.

Has small, triangular red seeds enclosed in its persimmon-like fruit. Gutsy and rosybeak phylers spread it in the Drake High Grassland environment. The rosybeak phyler is more suited to propagating it, since the gutsy phyler can digest brickbark ferine seeds. However, in the Drake Plains environment, it must rely on the rosybeak phyler. Populations there are sparser since fewer seeds survive being eaten. However, brickbark ferines are slowly adapting to this: the Drake Plains population tend to have seeds slightly more resistant to digestion. Drake Chaparral populations rely on the scarlet phlyer, which don't digest its seeds well.

At the borders of the Drake Plains habitat, different populations of brickbark ferines interbreed. This dilutes digestion-resistance of the seeds, as Drake Plains is surrounded by populations that don't need digestion-resistant seeds. The greater the germination rate of the seeds, the greater the resulting population becomes. If the population gets dense enough around the borders, xenobees cross-pollinate different brickbark ferine genotypes, leading to decreased digestive resistance.



In Drake High Grassland, they are found primarily in a thin line of territory adjacent to the western side of Yokto Temperate Riparian. Outside that line, they occur only sporadically. The brickbark ferine grows best in slightly alkaline soils.

''(Note: The brickbark ferine has a conundrum. To preserve its digestive resistance, it can become chemically incompatible with other populations' pollen or change its flowers so it appeals to a species of xenobee that pollinates exclusively Drake Plains brickbark ferine.)

(Its species name is based on the genus name for persimmons, Diospyros. However, "tealdeera" was feminine, and I have the impression it's customary for the genus and species name of a plant to match in grammatical gender. Am I conjugating "diospyros" correctly?)

(Should I include the image of the berries and seeds in a separate image?)''