Flapjack Pines

Weihuaidae, colloquially known as the Flapjack Pines, are a basal clade of Bone tree that has developed pollen and frond duplication. While they are decently common throughout the rainforests of Occidentis, they have clearly lost ground thanks to the evolution of the more advanced Keratodermatans. With their costly calcium rich trunks and the majority of their species being gonochoric, Flapjack Pines have several factors holding them back in comparison to the Keratodermatans. Still with the evolution of multiple fronds, and basic pollination, the Flapjack Pines still have a home in the continent of Occidentis

## Appearance

Flapjack Pines usually possess two pairs of leafy fronds and a chalk white trunk with brown horizontal stripes running alongside it. They can usually be quite tall with many individuals reaching great sizes of 21 meters (68.9 ft). Male and Female Flapjack Pines can be distinguished by their unique reproductive parts. The males have a golden cone that resemble the strobilus of Cycads, though their real reproductive structures lie on the feathery fronds that protrude from these cones. These feather fronds are covered by pollen which either blown by the wind or collected by a pollinator (it depends on the species), which will be carried to a female tree. The female trees by contrast have a large pit at the top on their canopy alongside sticky vine like structures. These structures can capture pollen from the wind or a passing pollinator looking for some nectar. These captured grains will then merge with the "eggs" of the female tree and will proceed to turn into burs that will attach to the bodies of flying creatures where they are distributed far and wide.

## Evolution

While basal by today's standards, Weihuaidae has many features that set them apart from more basal Bonetrees. The earliest bonetrees had simple bony trunks and single row of photosynthetic organs. Flapjack Pines are within a group that duplicated this row of fronds for more surface area. This larger clade would eventually lead to the evolution of the Keratodermatans, though Flapjack Pines aren't closely related to them. One of the main features that set Weihuaidae apart was their unique reproductive method. They developed their top pair of fronds into the reproductive structures that was mentioned earlier. For a time, they were one of the most diverse clades of polyspeculates on Wallace ii, though all of that changed with the Compsogene-Recensgene mass extinction event. Weihuaidae with their more basic and resource expensive trunks suffered heavily due to the mass extinction, with only a miniscule fraction of their former diversity left. Meanwhile the Keratodermatans with their easier to build trunks and more consistent means of dispersal led them to dominate where Flapjack Pines have struggled. While Weihuaidae isn't a common as they used to be, they are still incredibly common on Occidentis and are a food source for many large dispeculates such as the Intusfistula longuscolli and Makrolaimos stomacheiri. While they may have suffered a massive blow in diversity, Flapjack Pines are still going strong in Occidentis and it's unlikely that they will disappear any time soon