Tridentea pachyrrhiza when the good times roll

Tridentea pachyrrhiza is a dwarf succulent of the sandy flats near the coast in the west of the northern Richtersveld.

Even a comparatively unknown plant may capitalise in a big way when it rains opportunity! This clearly happened here on the sandy Richterveld coast. The species formed a thriving colony of numerous healthy plants when it was given its half-chance, the desert jackpot. Plentiful seed-setting in the good season may enhance survival probability over several seasons. The maximal strategy in nature is so often the right approach for the optimal outcome for the species.

Safe rather than sorry strategies are common wherever living things do their utmost, resulting in diverse phenomena of niche excess behaviours by living organisms. This improves their chances of spreading, colonising bigger space, the ubiquitous quest for Lebensraum.

This drive is on, whether new terrain is vacant or already home to something else. Richard Dawkins explained the selfishness of genes, exercising (almost) universal disregard for interspecies fairness or the “constitutional” rights and considerations of others.

For who knows when climate or predator will intervene, bringing an end to the clan’s feast of the moment, or forever (White and Sloane, 1937; Frandsen, 2017; Williamson, 2010; iNaturalist)?