Zygophyllum foetidum old flower, young fruit

Zygophyllum foetidum petals may lose their yellow colouring before they drop off, becoming white. Although a little petal waviness may already be present at peak bloomtime, their undulations increase to real wrinkling with age.

Large, pale-brown, old anthers devoid of pollen and persisting on curving filaments surround the thin green style in picture. This is the haphazard conclusion of a floral life growing near.

The evolving structure regains decorum and solidity, however, when the shiny green ovary becomes dominant in the fruiting stage, firm and elegantly rounded slightly lower down. A flowers existence culminates in fruition and transience does not detract from this. But a flowers existence is a chance game and not all that starts off in full vigour makes it. Still, the vigour of every bud constitutes a necessary part of being a plant.

Species matters more than specimen. And life itself matters more than any particular species. What happens in the living world is about nature, the collective scramble for survival of all extant species. The current "list" of living species constitutes the biodiversity we hear about so much, the "thing" that should be conserved. People cant conserve it though, nature does that by itself.

The current era is, however, characterised by people having looked after their own interests so successfully that the impact on the rest of nature has become excessive. Part of it all still, just another species on earth although for the moment the dominant one (if Covid hasnt taken over already), we seem destined to suffer and even disappear if we continue on our selfish route.

Short term success has made our species at the moment too big for its boots. It remains for nature to do something about that if people dont take action soon and change direction on some issues. People collectively, being brainy and strong in communication and planning, are capable of mending their ways. Its going to be interesting for the next generation or two to see if people will manage a concerted effort to overcome the current set of manmade earthly dilemmas and to what extent.

More than 99% of all species that ever lived on earth are already extinct. They were merely the temporary but important "vehicles" resulting in the current mix of living species, the so far luckiest, most durable offspring.

Life doesnt control the environment. It represents the evolving set of all the constituent living species at a given time endeavouring to stay alive. People are but one specific incident of evolutionary phenomena in earths history. Further events in the big picture of survival of the fittest on earth may well include us in some form. We have brains, so we will wriggle, plot and scheme, inside the experiment, while sometimes believing were controlling it. On other days we relinquish the responsibility to use our heads and pray for help.

For now, however, matters of the moment are of more interest: The style in picture, protruding from the top of the ovary (or by now the swollen young fruit), appears to be lasting longer than the soon to be redundant stamens (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2009).