Mandela's Tasseled Volleypom

Mandela's Tasseled Volleypom split from its ancestor to live more inland, primarily found in dense thickets near waterways with the undergrowth dominated by immature and stunted root suckers. Their thinner trunks often fork multiple times resulting in several leading points of growth. The bark is relatively smooth, old layers quickly being dropped away to shed possible parasites and prevent any krugg, vermee, or floraverm, infestations from occurring. The roots sucker readily along their length, giving rise to clone trees. Suckers appear at the base of the trunk as well, quickly replacing the main body if it is broken or dies suddenly. They may potentially give rise to a second, third, or fourth trunk with the original entirely intact as well. The growing tips are colored a deep maroon due to pigmented defensive compounds that deter voracious herbivores such as floraverms from destroying the new growth.

The leaves form a fluffy canopy varying in color leaf to leaf as light and wind exposure changes, just as in its ancestor volleypoms. The summer and winter leaves have similar growth habit to the Contorted Volleypom, pinnate and needle-like in shape respectively. The edges of the summer leaf tend to be choppier and toothier than their ancestor, this choppiness is due to multiple dominate and subordinant tracheal veins occuring, creating a mild redundancy that buffers against leaf damage from herbivory as the bottlenecking in tissue makes sealing the damage off easier. The tip of the winter leaf happens to be thicker than their ancestors winter leaf.

The microsporangia clusters have taken on a different growth habit. They no longer form loose clusters of units, rather they now grow in single file chains hanging down from branches. New units are added at the growing end of the chain, with the chains being able to reach lengths of up to 2 meters. The units in these chains all open within a short time of one another, and their arrangement allows for the creation of spore clouds that cover large vertical areas early on while dispersing. Microsporangia begin appearing on trees 1 meter tall, albeit very short lengths.

Megasporangia grow as solitary units on twigs and are typically 10-15 cm in length. They over time lose the hollow pocket behind the reproductive portion of the sporangium, the reproductive portion actually sinking into the voided area. Toward the trilobed tip of the sporangium a three pointed beak occurs with an inner surface for catching and funneling in microspores. This structure increases area for capture, while providing greater obstacle to potential predation of the megaspores. Inside the sporangium are only three very large, hard, megaspores. With their hardened spore walls, or shells, they are very nut-like and hold quite a bit of energy dense meat to allow for a quick growing sprout. Megasporangia will begin appearing on trees 3-4 meters tall, but can occur on root suckers of mature trees when only 1 meter tall, though in low number. Once the megaspores are mature the sporangium will dry and may release them directly from the tree, the beak pointing away from the tree and shaped like a short slide to direct the fall of the nut. More often though the entire sporangium falls from the tree and fauna may carry it off to feast, dropping one or two lucky megaspores along the way.