Flameflowers

Flameflowers are an expansive clade of hothouse sunflowers which are exceptionally diverse, and which have evolved very rapidly. Flameflowers are ancestrally poisonous and produce powerful terpenoid chemicals related to cantharidin which cause them to be toxic and their sap often dangerous to touch, producing burns and blisters on exposed skin. They evolved these hostile defenses originally to deter feeding by thorngrazers, animals little deterred by physical defenses like thorns or spines. The earliest members of the clade, already producing defensive terpenes that rendered them distasteful, were present on Serina by 265 million years PE, and were primed to radiate in the immediate aftermath of the great thaw as their enemies became superabundant with few competitors in the early hothouse.

This group of plants is distinctive for the unusually vibrant foliage presented by a majority of its members. Flameflowers, rare among plants, often have striking aposematic warning colors - red, black, purple and yellow stripes and spots - intended to alert grazers to the danger they pose. Among vertebrates, only certain mowerbirds - the firefinches - have evolved quickly enough to develop resistance to their defenses and to continue to eat their foliage, while large land animals give these plants a wide berth; just brushing against the most toxic species produces severe burns, and eating them is invariably fatal. Even the most primitive and least harmful species, similar to the common ancestor of them all, exhibit some of these markings in the form of bright yellow spotting on their leaf margins. In late hothouse species the patterns produced on their foliage is often dramatic and unmistakable. Bright patterns are produced mainly by anthocyanins, pigments which visually mask the appearance of green chlorophyll that is still present in the photosynthetic leaves and stems of flameflowers. These pigments originated as defensive colors used for a very different purpose in ancestral sunflowers, and in many flowering plants, as a protective shield against cold temperatures as well as solar radiation. Red foliage in other plant groups for these purposes still occurs widely across Serinan plants (and Earth ones, too), but few plants can match the vibrancy seen in the flameflowers.

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The flameflower clade by 290 million years P.E. covers an enormous range of morphology, from small herbs to shrubs, trees, vines and epiphytes, with shared specializations of their leaf, root, and flower structures expressed in extremely varied ways. These plants cannot be identified as relatives based on traits such as leaf shape, growth habit, or color - even close relatives often differ dramatically in all three respects, adapted as they all are to exploit nearly every niche a land plant can hold. But the earliest flameflowers were primitive, ground-creeping herbs resembling daisies. Plants like this were (and are) like living fossils, like earth ferns, and changed very little over Serina's history, for their function was adaptable in most conditions. They have retained the ancestral sunflower's flower structure: a ‘flower’ that is actually an inflorescence, a structure of numerous tiny flowers, surrounded by a surrounding ring of petals which attracted pollinators to the flowers between them. Time did produce small changes, though, and in flameflowers the petals hav evolved into five clusters, fused at the base, a characteristic retained in all descendant species, giving their blossoms a windmill- or pinwheel-like appearance. This distinctive flower shape is one of the most reliable ways to identify a member of the flameflower clade at a glance.

Flameflower ancestors grew in full-sun locations with ample soil moisture, and they sent down roots at each leaf node to plant themselves in the soil as they sprawled, which enabled them to compete with grasses and, to an extent, smother other seedling vegetation beneath them and so avoid being overshadowed - clovers, too, grow in this way, and sunflowers early on evolved a similar form when confronted with a similar habitat of open grasslands. The anatomy of every flameflower today can be traced back to this ancestral form. Some remained 'creepers", lengthening their stems until they were vines; from here, some vines moved from the ground to the trunks of other trees in more forested environments, where they could grow upwards to the canopy quickly, without needing to support their own weight. Here, some became epiphytes that did not grow on the ground at all, but spent their entire lives living on trees, and these would become among the most derived of all flameflowers. Yet, some stayed in the open, and with sun abundant there even at ground level, they either didn't need to grow tall at all, or could afford to take their time growing a sturdy, woody trunk of their own, becoming trees themselves.

Flameflowers of grasslands and other open settings were most vulnerable to predation, first from thorngrazer herds and later from giant skuorcs such as the cygnosaurs and skulossi; they became, and remain, among the most poisonous, while forest species faced fewer threats and could reduce or even eliminate production of their defenses, with some then repurposing their bright colors for more benign uses. The toxic nature of most flameflowers, especially those of grasslands and sunny wetlands, lets them compete well against grasses, for though the latter can grow far quicker, they are limited by the feeding of animals while flameflowers can take their time to grow without being damaged; over time, flameflowers of the most toxic species can spread to form vast monocultures at the expense of grasses. Such habitats are initially relatively barren and support few herbivores, but are short-lived as the shade cast by these poisonous plants soon encourages the formation of a forest biome; tree seedlings can now be protected from their own enemies by the toxic foliage over the ground, and such trees, being adapted to start life in the shadows, eventually outgrow and ultimately shade out the flameflowers, to their detriment. In this way, rather than really reduce biodiversity long-term, even the most deadly and seemingly indomitable flameflowers really just speed up ecological succession. Once trees are big enough to close the canopy, causing the poison pioneers to be starved of light, herbivores of all sizes can return to feed on a new buffet of nutritious plant foods, and from then on, only generally less toxic shade-adapted flameflower species can still survive there. This is the case at least until storms or the actions of huge herbivores open up tracts of forest again, and allowing grasses to return, and so the sun-adapted flameflowers can ultimately take root again too, restarting the cycle.

Flameflowers have evolved into entirely dissimilar shapes and sizes in the last twenty million years. Vines, shrubs, trees, and forms little changed from their first ancestors all coexist. Each has hypertrophied one or more parts of their body: they might now appear as a fast-spreading, ground-crawling vine with enormous leaves that catch as much light singly a an entire small tree, adapted to capitalize on a short-live polar growing season. In drier areas, a slow-growing woody trunk with root-derived defensive spines may be most successful - and where no enemies exist to eat them, a strange jungle epiphyte attracting pollinators with brightly colored leaves in place of flower petals may be found. But the basic flower structures of all remain functionally unchanged - size and petal color vary (and petals may be absent entirely) but the gametes of most remain compatible, for these plants are all close relatives, changed by different environments yes, but still very recently diverged. Insects or wind move between biomes, passing pollen from the blossom of one to another, often of a different species, and with very high frequency, a viable hybrid seed is produced. Most hybrids are likely to be unfit for survival, combining differing parent's genes in less effective ways than either. But flameflowers are adapted to produce huge numbers of seeds, which they disperse through wind, water, and the passing-by of furred or feathered animals. A few inviable hybrids are of little concern. The real key to their diversity is in the rare one which improves, in some way, on its parents. And with so many seeds always being produced, this is not entirely rare.

A hybrid flameflower might inherit traits from two parent species which last interbred millions of years ago. Most often, this may present as a relatively even mix of the parents, a combination which is less likely to survive, as the different species are often so different than something in between is simply unsuited to the niche of either. More likely to persist is a hybrid which most closely resembles one parent, but with a new, singular additional trait from the other. In this way, it becomes very difficult to truly trace the phylogeny of flameflowers, for though several genera, or subgenera can be identified within the tangle, random traits which may have originated in just one branch can pop up suddenly in others less related following a hybridization event. In this way, for example, the genes responsible for bracts - specialized, colorful leaves growing just below a flower, that serve to attract pollinators - jumped from the blistergrass family in which they first evolved, into the distantly related treevines and trifles, lineages separated by almost 20 million years and radically different in appearance. Both blistergrasses and treevines now show bracts, but no other flameflowers do, including lineages closer to the ancestry of both: the trait as acquired in a single jump through hybridization, from one species into another. In some cases, anatomy meshed together in this way from different parents produces plants quite unlike either of their ancestors in any way, as is the case for the strange firespikes, which originally descended from one extremely poisonous terrestrial parent notable for its enormous leaves and long vines, and one harmless, tiny epiphytic one with only highly modified leaves, and no vines at all. Several Serinan animal lineages also utilize hybridization to spread genes across species lines, including wumpos and forest unicorns, but none of them come close to the chaos which can be seen when similar circumstances arise within the plant kingdom.

Subfamily Flammadendronoidea, the primitive flameflowers.

A basal lineage of unassuming, low-growing daisies, which is ancestral to all other flameflowers.

1. Common flameflower.

Genus Adurodendron (burning-leaf.) The most primitive genus of flameflowers, these low-growing, hardy perennial wildflowers evolved before the hothouse age and were common plants in Mid-ultimocene environments, including tundra. Today they are common in brightly lit, evenly moist areas worldwide, such as meadows, stream banks, and the edges of woodlands; dozens of forms exist, and their taxonomy is often unclear, so that a generic example is illustrated. A maximum height of 4 feet is possible where able to crawl over other plants for support, with most only reaching 18-24 inches above the ground and spreading outward. Fallen stems may grow aerial roots into the soil. Common flameflowers produce the same defensive terpenoids as more derived species, but in small quantities; they are only harmful if ingested, and even then only in significant quantity. Extremely bitter alkaloid compounds are more prominent, lending an extremely unpleasant taste which deters continued grazing. Because these plants are only moderately poisonous, they have limited aposematic coloration, but may exhibit yellow or dark red banding along the leaf edges, and new shoots are red in color and subsequently highest in toxic terpenes.

Common flameflowers, unlike more derived relatives, don't tend to outcompete other ground vegetation and grow amongst other floral communities non-aggressively. Flowers are born in small groups at the tops of stems, and are yellow to orange. Plants branch after flowering, growing bushy over time. Insects pollinate the blossoms, while sunflower-like seeds in small hulls fall near the parent plant or may be dispersed by wind, rain, or the movements of passing animals. Birds and molodonts often feed upon the seeds, which are not toxic.

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Subfamily Rectuculmoideae, the stiff-stemmed flameflowers.

One of the two major subfamilies of these plants which diverged 19 million years ago, rectuculmonoids generally grow with upright, often woody stems.

2. Meadowspark.

Lesiospinus plagosus (banded blistering-spike.) Aggressive, highly competitive plants which often take over grasslands and forest clearings across Serinarcta, meadowspark belongs to a genus of flameflowers called blistergrasses. Morphologically still primitive, they are nonetheless more derived than common flameflowers. The leaves are elongated and strap-like, very stiff, and sharp at the tip; stems grow continuously, branching into two each time a flowering shoot is produced. Though the older stems grow woody and trunk-like, blistergrasses do not tend to reach heights beyond four feet as their trunks lean and fall over with time, so that the plant creeps outward along the ground, sending out roots at every node to secure itself into the soil. They can be long-lived in consistent sunny conditions, and can spread to cover great areas of land, but are prone to dominate an area exclusively by overgrowing grasses and ultimately being overgrown by forest vegetation that takes root in their shade, so that most colonies live around fifty years. Vibrant red and black striped leaves are typical for this genus, which is one of the two most toxic flameflower genera. Meadowspark advertises its danger through visual signals, so has few alkaloids in its leaves to give warning of its toxicity - with no strong bitter taste, initially seems harmless when eaten, with internal damage (blistering lesions) and subsequent severe pain occurring after several minutes and only once it has been masticated and swallowed by a thorngrazer. Poisonous if ingested, sharp leaf tips are hollow and incorporate silica into their structure, forming tiny needles that break off in the skin of passing animals and release drops of sap into soft tissues, producing burns and blisters. Sap in an animal's eyes can lead to lasting blindness. Blistergrasses may be considered proto-carnivorous plants, as their many sharp leaves can sometimes catch and hold unfortunate animals and kill them with debilitating burns, after which they are likely to decompose and be left untouched by scavengers, so that the plant colony can benefit from the nutrients which will ultimately decompose into the soil. Despite the dangers to most animals, firefinches evolved in-tandem with this lineage of flameflower and are highly resistant to their defenses. They feed on the soft tissues of the leaf with their sharp beaks, while eating around the leaf veins, avoiding spilling the most highly concentrated sap onto themselves; their oily feathers also provide defense against skin burns. They are largely immune to the ingested effects of the chemical, and the terpenes in their diet are sequestered into their bodies and excreted in their preen oil, to be groomed across their plumage to provide defense from their own predators and in some species, the toxins are collected on the beak and used offensively.

Blistergrasses such as meadowspark produce tall stalks of usually white flowers that attract small birds and flying insect pollinators, safely above the dangerous leaves. Concentrations of terpenes in the flowering shoots are low, and this is reflected in the less intense, often green hue of these parts of the plant. The leaf structure of blistergrasses transitions from the spike-like form of the growing plant to a more primitive, rounded foliage resembling ancestral sunflowers as a stem approaches its flowering stage, a common transition seen across many flameflowers. Just before buds open, these round leaves often acquire a rosy hue. Known as bracts, these colored leaves may assist in attracting pollinators to visit the relatively plain flowers. Seeds are similar in structure to common flameflowers but smaller; they also have fuzzy hulls that serve to make them more likely to blow away in a gust of wind and land in a new, suitable site to germinate. They are bitter-tasting and unappealing to seed predators, which is likely an adaptation to protect them from firefinches. 

3. Swelter.

Stellamortus sudoris (sweating death-star.) Small to large, herbaceous annual flowers with short lifespans less than 2 years. Growth is rapid, strongly upright and only rarely branching. Heights range from 24 inches to over 16 feet. These flameflowers favor disturbed, edge habitats and usually grow in rich sediment deposited along riverbanks and the borders of forests, with a worldwide range. Foliage is distinctively lobed and star-like in shape. Swelter is named for the sensations it produces when in contact with the mucous membranes of certain animals, namely feelings of intense, burning heat and intense sweating. Most plants of this genus, called death stars, have additional chemical defenses in addition to terpenes, and in swelter capsaicin-like amides are utilized. The leaves of swelter are fuzzy with hollow hairs called trichomes, and these hairs, when brushed against, release microscopic quantities of sap with a concentrated amide solution that induces sensations of burning throughout the mouth, eyes, and nose, which may persist for several hours. Birds are unaffected by these effects, which trigger a nerve pathway absent in avians but present in tribbetheres; this reflects adaptation to discourage molodont grazers, while relying on birds to disperse their seeds. Though the “on fire” feeling that results from nibbling on swelter is very unpleasant, no long-term harm results - the pain produced, like that humans may experience eating chilli peppers, is not physical damage, but rather a trick of the nerves that mimics actual harm. This defense actually may save an herbivore, for unlike one eating benign-tasting blistergrass, the initial pain from just one bite of swelter is so severe as to drive the animal away before it eats enough of the plant to be poisoned by its additional terpene defenses.

Death stars often have prominent red markings on otherwise green foliage as a warning of their danger, but some species may lack any such color at all, relying on the immediate effect of their “spice” to protect themselves even without a visual marker as to their toxicity. Fast-growing and short-lived, death stars do all of their growth before blooming, and grow only one set of flowers at the end of their lives. The hull of their seed is fleshy and sweet and is eaten by birds, which pass their seeds in their droppings far away from the parent plant. Because birds disperse them, death stars grow worldwide, but are much more abundant in Serinarcta where the dominant herbivores that threaten them are molodonts; in Serinaustra, avian grazers such as trunkos are not perturbed by their flavor and may have some tolerance to their stronger chemical defenses, which are much weaker than in many flameflowers. Plants like swelter often grow in isolated stands among other plants, and so it can be difficult for a large animal to eat enough in one sitting to be poisoned, and unlike in blistergrass, the concentration of the truly harmful chemicals in their tissues is not high enough to cause skin damage when touched. The lesser amount of terpenes makes them less attractive as a food source to firefinches, too, which rely on strong concentrations of chemicals to render themselves poisonous to their own predators.

4. Nefarious Needlenode.

Lapparborus linteus (sailed barbed-tree). Arguably a subgenus of species of Lesiospinus, but quite different in growth habit, these plants are commonly known as treachera trees. This species is native to Serinarcta’s savannahs. They are all large, upright relatives of blistergrass which though slow growing are one of the few flameflowers that are not subject to die out when trees grow among them and shade out their foliage. Treachera trees can grow to heights of up to 60 feet themselves, and generally have a single trunk that only branches some distance from the ground. Roots which grow at the nodes of blistergrass are specialized into defensive spines in these trees (thus the common name of this species, needlenode), which protect them not only from thorngrazers early in life, but from cygnosaurs and other large skuorc browsers as they grow. Only the foliage of treachera trees contains significant quantities of dangerous terpenoids, and so the spines on the trunk are a physical deterrent to damage to their bark. The leaves are equally sharp and wiry, but also laden with chemical defenses that are injected into would-be predators that come too close, so that not even the largest browsers will generally touch them. This gives them an advantage against other forest trees, even though they are slower-growing and generally less competitive otherwise. 

While other trees in a newly growing forest may be trimmed and nibbled extensively before eventually outgrowing the reach of the browsers, treachera trees will be untouched and in this way can maintain a head start in height against other vegetation, though their final adult size is less than many competitors like dancing trees, and those plants can eventually cover their canopies and at last shade them out, a process that can take over a century. Treachera trees have taken the small bracts which grow around the flowers of their blistergrass relatives and exaggerated them into large, vibrant “sails” (thus their species epithet)  while their true flowers have become quite small and insignificant. This has the advantage of drawing in pollinators from a distance, while protecting the blossoms from wind and weather, as these trees are often exposed to the brunt of storms due to their tall height. Warning coloration is usually limited to red colored new foliage in the adult tree, but juveniles often mirror the banded markings of blistergrass, and usually grow protected in clusters of that plant when young. Only very young treachera trees are usually nibbled by firefinches, as the foliage of the adult tree is too hard for the birds to chew.

5. Scarlet Elkhorn.

Cornibuflorus coccinus (scarlet antler-flower). Elkhorns are a flameflower genus that is intermediate in form between death-stars and the blistergrass/treachera tree subclade and likely has ancient hybridization with both lineages. A single rosette of lobed foliage grows low to the ground and is strikingly colored in solid red, mottled yellow and red, or rarely purple. Toxicity levels are high, and damaging the foliage will release thick sap that produces severe burns to soft tissues, though the leaves are very thick, long-lasting and not adapted to break, so that harm only from touching the foliage is unlikely. Adapted to bright, sunny places with few competitors, scarlet elkhorns are endemic to sand dunes in northern Serinarcta’s hyperborean raindesert. 

They are very long lived, like blistergrass, and can live in excess of 100 years, but bloom only once at the ends of their lives, like death stars. Individual leaves continue to grow throughout life and in some species reach lengths of over 30 feet, spiraling ribbon-like around the plant and fraying heavily at their tips, but in this small species they are littler, and a maximum length of just 26 inches is seen (this species lives only around ten years, compared to larger species which can last ten times as long.) When the plant is fully mature, a tall unbranched stalk rises from the rosette, and the leaves transition toward simple rounded foliage as is common for many blooming flameflowers; the warning color is also lost, and the flower stalk is normally green. Showy yellow blossoms attract pollinators; seeds are scattered along the ground and dispersed by wind, water, or animals that collect and bury them and don’t remember to dig them back up. Unlike blistergrasses, the plant does not branch after blooming and instead dies off; it has only a single apical meristem, and if the growing tip of the young plant is damaged, it cannot recover and will never reach maturity. Fortunately for the elkhorn, its toxicity means it will rarely be so damaged by any sort of animal. 

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Subfamily Ignivineaoideae; the vining flameflowers. 

The second major lineage of hothouse flameflowers, differentiated from the stiff-stemmed subfamily by their often spindly vine-like stems and horizontal, rather than upright growth.

6. Suncatcher.

Insignedendron solis (sun-like banner-leaf). Arguably the most showy of all flameflower genera, these plants are known as flareflags and are distinctive for their enormous leaves, which include the largest foliage of any plant in the world. Among Ignivineaoids, flareflags are the most toxic and one species, the suncatcher, is the most toxic flameflower of all. Yet outside this genus, vining flameflowers are usually considerably less poisonous than their upright relatives, which likely is a reflection of specialization to low-light forest settings where large herds of grazers are rare, and so predation is less of a concern. Flareflags are exceptional, for they are endemic to Serinarcta’s upperglades and polar basin regions - open habitats rife with large herbivores, from which they must defend themselves. Whether they acquired their strong chemical defenses independently, or through long-distance hybridization with the other subfamily, is unknown. 

What is certain is that the suncatcher is exceedingly beautiful, and shockingly deadly. Enormous leaves up to twelve feet high, though usually six to eight, rise above a thick rhizome-like vine stem that creeps along the soil of permanently damp places like wetlands and riverbanks. Vibrant yellow, red, purple (rarely green, blue and black) patterns are present on every leaf, resembling stained glass or intricate abstract art. These colors make them impossible to miss as they grow in large groves in sunny wetland areas, and advertise levels of blistering terpenoids so concentrated that a single tear in a leaf will release enough sap to blind an animal; anywhere the sap falls on an animal’s body, a deep, festering wound will appear as the skin cells dissolve, and even healed burns leave deep, disfiguring scars. The foliage of the suncatcher, a species of the high arctic circle, grows distinctively upright and typically east-west oriented, so as to always face the horizon and catch the most of the low, circling sun during the polar summer. Plants grow extremely rapidly during the polar summer, growing from seedlings to adulthood in as little as one season under the midnight sun, though they are perennial and can live for several years. Leaf shape changes slightly as the plant ages, developing first small lobes and later larger slits on the leaf edges, which serve as natural breaking points in the wind that don't compromise the strength of the plant and make it less vulnerable to storm damage by allowing wind gusts to pass through it.

Too toxic even for firefinches to graze, suncatchers have no significant vertebrate predators (some insects are immune to their effects) but are limited by specific habitat requirements: they need full sun and constant waterlogged soil at their roots to survive, but are intolerant of inundation and their leaves will rot if submerged for days at a time. This limits their range to neither too close, nor too far from permanent water bodies, and in regions not subject to unpredictable seasonal flooding during the growing season. Further, many mature plants are killed during winter, when their leaves die off and their vines are dormant, when stormy conditions often bury them in sediment. Suncatchers can bloom several times a summer, producing a tall, very showy spike of brilliant blue-petaled flowers which contrasts strikingly against their foliage to attract pollinators. After each flower stalk grows upwards, a single new apical meristem grows from the nearest node and continues growing along the soil and throwing out new foliage. The plant almost never branches, remaining a single vine that often twists and turns its way around as it grows. Seeds have a large, air-filled hull and disperse floating in water, to settle on some distant shore away from the parent. Neither seeds, nor flowers, nor the flowering stem itself contains significant levels of defensive chemicals; the stem, too, is mostly harmless. Only the foliage is deadly, and during winter some animals may consume the dormant vine with no ill-effects.

7. Trifoliate Umbrellivy.

Mutatiofolius umbellis (umbrella-like changing-leaf.) A large, common Serinaustran jungle vine adapted to grow up forest trees, grabbing hold with adventitious roots below every leaf and ultimately reaching the sunlit canopy without ever needing to grow a sturdy trunk of their own. A typical member of the vining flameflowers in general form and habitat preference, it is an aroid-like plant with thick, almost rubbery foliage and little resemblance at all to the stiff-stemmed flameflowers more common in northern regions. Umbrellivies belong to a genus known as the variable treevines, and they are named for the unusually diverse range of leaf shapes their members exhibit throughout their lives and sometimes at the same time. Seedlings have simple, ovate foliage but gradually develop increasingly lobed leaves as they grow, which culminate in the trifoliate umbrellivy in enormous, deeply divided foliage resembling a huge, round palm frond. This pattern of leaves becoming increasingly complex is opposite to that of the stiff-stemmed flameflowers which often show lobed leaves when young, but transition to simple ones as they age and approach flowering. The divided foliage of the adult treevines may serve to reduce wind damage, as they do in the suncatcher, but this shape may also serve to more evenly distribute scarce jungle sunlight to the plant by letting some pass through the slits in the upper leaves and so fall onto the lower. Umbrellivies often show all stages of leaf shape on a single plant, as even when mature, any time a stem is trimmed, damaged, or loses its apical meristem when flowering, one or more new shoots emerges from a node with the simpler juvenile leaf shape and then quickly transitions back to the adult size and structure over a period of several weeks.

Variable treevines are not strongly toxic plants, for their jungle environment doesn’t require it. No thorngrazers live on Serinaustra, and even avian herbivores are sparsely distributed in dense jungle regions where thick plant growth limits their herd sizes. Their stems are thus entirely without terpene defenses; their leaves contain them, but in weak concentration and differing chemical structure from other flameflowers; they produce bitter tastes and minor, temporary damage to mucous membranes, but will not burn skin nor cause death unless consumed in huge quantity. In contrast to related species, however, treevines have more concentrated defenses in their flowers and especially in the foliage immediately preceding their blossoms, their bracts. Treevines, like blistergrasses, have bracts - specialized colorful leaves that occur near their flowers, but none of their ancestors did, nor do close but more basal relatives like flareflags. The trait has passed into their lineage through hybridization outside their subfamily, likely less than ten million years ago. They appear in these plants in a modified way; genes which normally control the development of flower petals are involved in their formation, and here they grow in clusters in groups of three, depending on species, rather than singly as in blistergrasses and treachera trees. Treevines use their large and very showy pink or purple bracts as long-lived signals to pollinators, retaining them for years and continually sprouting new, tiny and easy to miss flowers on old bloom stalks. Because they want their bracts to last a long time, and because bracts cannot be regrown if lost from any given flower stalk (but can be grown on a new stalk in the future), they are the only leaves on the whole plant which are significantly toxic if eaten, though even they pose no harm if merely touched. The seed hull is fleshy and sweet and is fed upon by birds; very sticky seeds are deposited in droppings below other trees, where the seedlings can sprout and take root up the trunk.

8. Rambling Everbloom.

Aeternaflora viator (traveler forever-flower). Possibly a subgenus of Mutatiofolius and certainly evolved out of it, everblooms are in a clade of treevines called traveler trifles, notable for their especially long-lasting bracts, which persist for up to ten years at a time, advertising thousands of short-lived flowers that come and go beneath them. These plants are epiphytes, adapted to spend their entire lives in the treetops and not to root into the ground at any point. Their fruit is reduced to a tiny, vestigial berry smaller than the seed it is attached to, while the seed - only as big as a sesame seed - is extremely sticky. Pollinating birds attracted to the colorful bracts not only spread pollen from flower to flower but, because the bracts are always present even when flowers may not be, such birds seeking a nectar meal will now get the seed stuck to their head feathers. Flying away to another branch to perch and dislodge the unwelcome seed, they knock it off onto a new perch away from the parent, where it can sprout and grow. The “traveler” in traveler trifle and in their species name refers to an interesting ability for not just the seed but also the adult plant to wander to new places when conditions become unsuitable. If shaded by a larger neighbor, or if a tree branch falls from the canopy and into the dark below, these plants are capable of sending out especially long tendrils that latch upwards and into the light. The plant will redistribute all of its stored sugars into this tendril, rapidly increasing its diameter and allowing it to sprout new leaves as the rest of the plant withers and dries up into a shell of its former self. In a matter of only a couple months, the plant will have escaped the darkness and climbed upward to a new perch. New bracts soon develop, and eventually the dead part of its old body is broken away and left behind. 

A lack of any enemies renders this genus of flameflower entirely harmless. The only vestige of their ancestor’s warning colors now paints their bracts vibrant speckled shades of purple and red, seeking to draw in animals rather than scare them away. 

9. Purple Pitcher.

Aeternaflora decapitarus (decapitated forever-flower.) The unusual species name of this treevine refers to its strange growth habit, arguably the most derived of all flameflowers. An epiphyte like its close relative above, the purple pitcher belongs to a subclade known as rattail trifles, named for the dried up remnants of their initial vines that remain attached to their adult forms, no longer of use, resembling a rodent’s tail. Purple pitchers may start life either on a tree branch or on the forest floor, depending on where a bird drops their seed. They always want to be on a branch, though, for the ground is dark and comparatively dangerous. Unlike most trifles, which if their seed germinates down too late will simply not survive, rattail trifles are tenacious. They will grow upwards as a simple, spindly vine with small ovate foliage, rooting up a tree trunk for potentially years until they find a suitable sunlit branch to mature upon. Once there, they undergo a transformation. They begin to produce bloom stalks, surrounded by cup-shaped bracts that form a vase-like structure around them. 

The vine that climbed up for years to get the plant to this point now dies, its energy transferred into the growth of these new, specialized leaves, and into flowers and strong roots that adhere it firmly to the branch. Soon the vine is dead, a dangling vestigial tail, and the only leaves left on the plant are now its bracts. Bright and colorful, they attract small birds to its real blossoms hidden inside the clustered purple foliage, and this foliage now also collects some of the birds’ droppings as well as leaf litter and rainwater, providing the plant with a ready supply of nutrients otherwise scarce in its treetop home. Almost no trace of its flameflower ancestry now remains; it is not poisonous, and it has no normal leaves of which to speak - only its bracts. Rattail trifles have changed nearly every aspect of their ancestor’s anatomy to an entirely new purpose. And in doing so, they’ve gone places that ancestor could never have possibly managed to go. They have escaped all of the enemies that drove flameflowers to become so deadly in the first place, and so freed of the mortal terror of surviving a day to day existence, have become something beautiful, elegant, and remarkable. 

10. Infernal Firespike.

"Bastardendron corrumpus" (corrupt bastard-leaf.) A plant of complicated phylogeny, and difficult to categorize. Firespikes are a small genus, subgenus, or clade of some sort of just one single “species”, which emerged from cross-pollination and subsequent hybridization between two extremely different parents, a rattail trifle like the purple pitcher… and blistergrass, like the meadowspark. Descended from two different subfamilies of flameflowers divided for almost 20 million years and left with nothing in common, the hybrid descendant is not quite intermediate so much as quite different in its own ways from either ancestor. It could be described as dysfunctional, an accident that should not really exist. But yet it does, because it can, because though it is grossly confused in how it should look and act, it inherits its blistergrass ancestor’s strong toxicity, and so can do basically whatever it wants without worry of being harmed by any sort of animal - as long as it grows in a place where it is relatively free of competitors that would overgrow it and take away its sun.

The infernal firespike is a terrestrial plant, up to five feet high, which grows on the firmament, roughly midway between the ranges of its parent species, hailing from the savannahs of Serinarcta and the rainforests of northern Serinaustra, respectively. Here, it finds abundant sunlight and few trees to shade it. Its pollen parent was most likely the epiphytic trifle, and was carried overseas on the plumage of migrating birds. Its seed parent was presumably the blistergrass, and once fertilized, its seed blew here on the wind. This highland, sky island habitat seems to suit this confused hybrid species, for it is somewhat in between the ground that the blistergrass grows on and the high branches home to the trifle. Here it usually takes root in the shallow soil nearby a rocky outcrop, and throughout its life undergoes a strange and seemingly extremely disoriented development. As a seedling, it is a vine, and promptly climbs up the rock. Its first leaves are long and grass-like, yellow, red and green all mottled together in unpredictable patterns. When the vine reaches the top of the rock, it tries to transition to a mature state; all of its leaves fall off and die, and its stem withers away like that of the purple pitcher. But a rock is not a tree branch, and this hybrid is not an epiphyte; as its stem thickens and it begins to grow colorful bracts in preparation to flower, it fails to grow grasping roots, and falls over, usually off the rock entirely. Back on the ground, it roots into the soil and rights itself over a period of months, continuing to put out bracts instead of vines, for it is now entering its adult life stage, even though its long ascent up the rock was futile and ultimately pointless. Its final appearance is vaguely reminiscent of the purple pitcher, except much larger, with sharp, pointed leaves ranging from red to pink with bright yellow blotches. 

Though the firespike originated initially from a seed produced by a parent of another species perhaps millions of years ago, the hybrid species itself does not produce viable seeds. It produces only deformed flowers, on long stalks growing out from the middle of its rosette-like bracts, which do not produce viable pollen and show mutant structures which are intermediate between flower petals and bracts, usually blue in color. Such a plant, unable to reproduce, would seem unable to perpetuate itself or create another generation. But the firespike survives anyway, if only out of spite, for its flower spikes eventually fall over, and then nodes upon them sprout new branches. Just as the leaves of treevines transition back to their small, juvenile condition each time a new branch arises from the main vine, so too does this happen with the buds of the firespike. As the flower tips over, it touches the ground, and these wonky, lanky vines, with their grass-like juvenile leaves, take root and begin growing away from their parent. They repeat the useless pattern, trying to find something to grow up - a rock, usually, in the absence of a tree. And they eventually fall off, root back into the ground where they started, and acquire their adult form. The infernal firespike is a bastard plant only barely functional, which survives simply because it is too poisonous for anything to eat, and which can only produce clones of itself which are just as malformed as their parent. Yet, somehow, this is enough. The firespike survives, and so it too, is a winner of evolution… if only the winner of the consolation prize.