Sparse coastal vegetation

The will to live is well portrayed in the disadvantaged plant. Coastal rocks support stunted specimens of many well-known species that endeavour as hard as every well-to-do plant to fulfil the mission of delivering viable seed and offspring. There are many sets of marginal living conditions, extreme habitats that test all living species on earth.

Lacking conscious motivation, these plants, all plants, show how natural processes will continue without missing a beat, as the laws of every substance and circumstance in the universe dictate. Recognising life in the plant leads people to the unscientific opening statement above. The human mentality includes both personification by which we identify with the other living entities we encounter and alienation by which we push them aside as soulless, therefore inhuman.

Maybe there is something else happening in the plant than mere physical, chemical and mechanical processes! It is alive, after all. The human psyche has this pervasive reflex reaction of ascribing everything not yet understood to mystical, magical, mythical causes. But we’re learning!