Quiet coastal conference

When growing too close to the high water mark the white milkwood, Sideroxylon inerme, may not manage to become a tree. It is then obliged to fraternise with low-growing neighbours like a Cotyledon, Lachenalia or Asparagus and what not. There are even some leaves of a bulbous one without flower in the mix for the photo, some will remain nameless in the media, but not without identity in the veld.

Fortunately plants do not have big egos or bad habits of boasting about tough big brothers growing further inland. Sharing wind, water and sun, even some salt, allows for all to live out their natural lives side by side, as best they can in fresh air with no airs.

Some, like the Lachenalia and the climbing Asparagus declinatus will vanish into a seasonal slumbering mode like hibernation. The diehards like the would-be tree and the red-rimmed succulent will be left to keep vigil through the long, hot summer.

“See you next season, buddy! Show you then what new flower I’m capable of!”

Nobody is ego-involved here although nobody holds back in the fight for survival; they don’t think such stuff but do the necessary! Staying silent, each just does what nature has endowed it for: setting viable seed for as long as it can. And trusts in the seed, or behaves like it does.