Othonna perfoliata less lush leaves

Adapted for low rainfall and harsh temperatures in the demanding inland conditions of Kagga Kamma, these Othonna perfoliata leaves are narrow, sharply pointed at the tips and dull grey-green in colour. Leaf surfaces of O. perfoliata sometimes have a greyish bloom. Leaf dimensions are about 2 cm long and up to 1 cm wide, but very variable.

Compare these leaves to the lush ones of the shiny De Hoop Reserve plant also shown in this Album to see how the pampered relatives live in the wetter coastal conditions where temperatures are moderate.

Life is never fair, irrespective of the ubiquitous endeavours of humanity for improving upon the realities of nature. A constitutional right to clean drinking water for all becomes strained when the dams run dry. We live as best we can, subject to the laws of nature, in spite of manmade decrees.

Sharing is caring is a becoming slogan for citizens, but equality is as hard to sustain as a vacuum. Nature enforces change everywhere, continually reinstating uniqueness... another tenet and value held dear by people. Apart from managing death as its leveller, nature ruthlessly eradicates equality, warming the hearts of all kings with survival tendencies. Remembering, of course, that heads bearing crowns lie uneasy.

Interesting how human convictions shift in matters so vital to their survival, doing conceptual about-turns as values are softened by affluence, hardened by want. Nature does not care for the weak, civilisation does.

Replacing might with manners, strength with kindness, hoarding with sharing are the value attributes of the privileged, the intellectually refined and educated classes. The masses, especially those below the reach of a functional education have dwindling job opportunities, reduced cyclically by economic fluctuations and structurally by technological labour replacement. Most experience remote access to self-improvement, care little for handouts but accept them in desperation.

The liberal democracy-minded benefactors are remote and secretly despised, their magnanimity and soothing talk meaningless where root causes of poverty are left untouched. On the other side of the fence peace of mind is purchased by walls and alms, the frogs not jumping although the water hots up.

More stringent Queensberry Rules for treating the least fortunate right become law as the privileged seek solutions. Such things arm the desperate in their struggle and impact on natural resources as everything is used to alleviate the plight of the poor.

So this does fit among plant stories. Plant lovers prefer stories about insects, earth worms and amphibians as garnishing, not warnings about irate, toyi-toying people. Good plant stories deal effectively with all that impacts on the wellbeing of the plant world.

There is today no more relevant and pressing issue affecting the future of the plant world than the behaviour of people. Everything real in this world is related to everything else in a big or small way. Science cant tolerate vacuums in similar fashion as nature doesnt.

The point made in a digression only requires patience if the penny hasn;t dropped yet. And does it drop when green freaks understand, or when society behaves in a way that sustains the principle aimed at?

The future keeps bringing so many surprises because things juxtaposed in one era mask others lurking close by, only realised by newly revealed facts. Boredom is not a great cause of human deaths, not in our time anyway.

While the milk of human kindness is lauded by the gentle among the haves, dishing out what you do not own cannot work. Rolling over the debt to nature is wishful thinking. There simply is no green banker in the sky who will sign off.

Risk of exposing the soft underbelly of the human comfort zone increases continually. There are competitors of all sorts lurking in nature that cant be wished away. Some of the unwelcome outcomes are already upon us in the forms of climate change, resource shortages and the very natural responses of people denied by nature and their fellow human beings. The probabilities of such scenarios increase as the ratio of available resources to needy recipients continues to weaken.

Populism, closer to nature than to culture because it is strong in feeling, weak in thinking, reminds liberal democracy of the golden mean, of avoiding excess and of dealing with the real problems. Nature has forever been doing this, but people mainly paid heed academically and in minorities with remote interest fields. 

The tipping point into chaos in our time is approaching from several directions of shortage, requiring sharper leadership, more widely shared understanding and determined reinvention of a sustainable lifestyle for people on earth. And if we cant or wont, nature will deal with this in a continually more abrupt fashion. It can and does (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010; Manning, 2009; Manning and Goldblatt, 1996; Moriarty, 1997; iSpot).