Orange Plants

The orange plants of Canera have a kind of alternation of generations, switching between a more typical vegetative plant and a mobile, insect-like seed of sorts. The terms "male" and "female" are used very loosely and by analogy in the following description.   The female flower develops into something like a beetle and flies away. The male flower produces something that looks more like a typical fruit, which serves as the only food source for the female beetles of that species. A beetle may only eat a single fruit from a single male plant, or may eat many fruits from a variety of plants. The fruits range from pinhead to fingernail size, and the beetles range in size from Japanese beetle to plum.   After feeding, the beetles find an appropriate patch of ground, burrow to an appropriate depth, may go dormant for a period, and then germinate into the next generation's plant.   Both the male fruits and the female beetles grossly overproduce, because there are immense losses to predation by other species while they are present and active, and in the dormancy period before germination.   Beetle morphology varies, and is not the best shorthand, because there is no hard carapace. The body is plump and fleshy, with dragonfly-like wings and six legs, the front pair of which are modified for digging their burrow and manipulating fruit. There is also a pair of large antennae, which allow them to find fruit and planting sites.