Prefab cannot be instanced -- Unity not finding the mesh renderers

Warning message : "The tree Pine_B_Bare couldn't be instanced because the prefab contains no valid mesh renderer."

I have a tree prefab. Within the prefab is the meshes with mesh renders. I drag into scene and everything is happy.

But if I instance that prefab through Vegetation studio, I get the warning message above and the thing doesn't render. So, what about putting into a prefab is blocking unity from finding those meshes? Bug in how prefab works? In how vegetation studio is looking for things? Maybe a mismatched word in the shader on the tree meshes?

 

Seems like the mesh components need to be combined into single object. I don't think this is the best solution as I've seen other trees with multiple components, and this makes my workflow a little more annoying, but it works for now.

I'll update when I find real solution and can explain answer. Looks like this is a question thats been bugging people since 2010 and I couldn't find one straight simple answer.

 

any updates?