Felicia bergeriana, a short-lived plant and a long story

In conclusion of the floral activity in a Felicia bergeriana capitulum (flowerhead), the last hint of yellow in the centre of the open disc florets accompanies full reefing of the blue ray sails at the end of their fleeting voyage. Developmental emphasis is by now on the ripening of the multitude of little fruits forming in the disc and the surrounding rays.

F. bergeriana is an annual, meaning that there is a gap in the life of the species between consecutive generations of its plants. The gap starts at the time of death of all the individual plants of a particular year, lasting until the germination of the produced seeds in the next growth season. This happens once conditions on the ground turn positive later in the plants annual cycle. This gap in plant life overcomes environmental challenges for the species during its “off” season, those too hard times.

Perennial plants, tough enough to face all the seasonal hardships of their geographical distributions, carry on living throughout the year and then over several to many years. They only rest during their “off” seasons, biding their time to flower and fruit whenever the good times return.

This represents two different survival solutions employed by flowering plant species adapted differently to their prevailing environmental challenges: The longer lives of perennials may require smaller seed set per annum, as the plants get several, annual bites at the cherry during the years of their lives. Annuals tackle life in short bursts of activity. A full life cycle is completed by each new generation, going the whole hog in seasons of part of one year.

The phenomenon of ducking troublesome season(s) can be compared to animal hibernation or insect metamorphosis.

Life continuation in the species is the important aspect, the specimen incidental. But each plant, the responsible carrier of life once during its limited existence, is still a vital though temporary link in the survival chain of the species. The unique and particular survival solution arrangements of every species are established over time through evolution, forever under review as conditions in the particular region on earth change.

What happens en route to the individual plant specimen and all its mates during the chain of events in species life is quite unimportant, the specimen servant to its species. Although the focus of life for the species is beyond the individuals of the moment, the specimen’s horizon involves only itself. The importance of the carrier during its particular, short time interval remains key, like the wartime dispatch rider whose untimely death may change the fortune of nations. As long as the next generation is secured by every successive generation, life is good for the species, but tomorrows success is always a big issue in life.

Simultaneously, the life of the species is forever transforming from gradually splitting species into more forms as different challenges of time and place are faced by living plants. Every conceivable survival solution is preferable to extinction, whether the plant gets prettier or not.

Emphasis is on preserving life itself in whatever form that can succeed. The probability of survival in greatest diversity of all extant specific forms is at issue, preferably optimised, at every point in time.

This is hard work for life on earth, but it remains dedicated to the task continuously, as more than 99% of all living species on earth have already become extinct in the biological history of the earth. This demonstrates the enormity of the challenge for all in staying alive, irrespective of their species.

All the recorded devastation, particularly the mass extinctions, has happened in spite of the manifestations of evolution by all the living that continuously try to beat the odds in their particular environmental challenges.

A vital part of life’s survival strategy is putting the will to live not only into every species, but into every specimen of all that ever lived. Suicide is a singular special case, a tiny, aberrant phenomenon limited to humans only, caused by a small percentage of brains malfunctioning under specific conditions. Some think lemmings (and possibly a few others) develop this too, but that’s unlikely.

In spite of all the ubiquitous survival efforts, all living things keep on dying in accordance with their specific life cycles, like flies and worse. The phenomenon of all-pervading death sustains life in a curious way, by producing the raw material for the creation of new life. At the same time the selective timing of death before procreation makes the evolution of species possible and thereby the survival of more new species.

All the living has forever battled death in vain, none ever finding a way out, but some are still here, actually a lot of them. Death is such an integral, ironically vital part of life! All else in the line of meaning of life is myth and metaphysics, irrelevant to nature.