Euphorbia heptagona, a senior citizen

There is no abundance of small Euphorbia heptagona plants in the immediate vicinity of this old plant. Much seed must have been set here over the years. Little when the conditions were poor, but the Little Karoo has the occasional boom season when most things thrive and propagate prodigiously. One can only wonder where its offspring have settled, on or beyond the boundaries of the Minwater farm southwest of Oudtshoorn where it grows.

We live in times of children often settling further away from parental homes than in times past. For plants the distance of natural spread may also differ cyclically, supported by favourable conditions that ebb and flow. One-off events that facilitate unusually far landings may be rare, but constitute important moments in history, extending the distribution of a species or tribe significantly, like the emigration of a son.

As human populations have spread naturally, covering habitable parts of the earth in all directions, plants do the same as best they can in the quest for survival. Only to lose contact with far-off relatives that change shape and feature slowly but surely, to the point of recognition failing should they ever meet again.

Living different lives among different environmental challenges truly transform even in one life, but so much more over many generations... life is more about becoming than about being.

Whether past evolution was more significant than evolution yet to happen, depends upon the future duration of life on earth and the range of relevant conditions changing (and elsewhere should other planets, satellites and other possible locations may become viable).