Oscularia deltoides and lichen unobtrusive on blue rock

This Oscularia deltoides plant has managed to root in a vertical rock crevice. Next to it some lichen with similar tastes in domestic colour schemes have also settled. They even picked their rock to match! One might guess that the lichen had arrived first, but even a mesemb will have taken its time over acquiring so much foliage from the limited supplies of nutrients obtainable here. Look carefully, it has flowered well not too long ago.

Plant and alga-fungus symbiotic life, while biologically very different, could share this spot for long, well out of the way of competition for space and food; air pollution being their biggest risk.

Mountains hold this advantage of providing shelter to the small and the shy. For those that are adapted to the hardships of montane living, size and resilience are two poorly correlated features. Whatever relationship there may be is likely to be inverse, the small often tending to be the more durable.