Gladiolus flanaganii in its favourite habitat

Gladiolus flanaganii is called the suicide gladiolus given the cliff-hanger challenges it presents to photographers without long lenses and unfortunately also to greedy collectors. One way in which a species can optimise its survival chances is to occupy terrain so inaccessible that whoever might mean to harm it cannot reach it.

It's ironical that those doing harm to plants so often mean well. It is only the commercial farmers and gardeners that eradicate unwanted plants intentionally when they are relegated to the weed category. This amounts to their extermination, happiness coming from no longer seeing them, no longer disadvantaged aesthetically or economically by them. Also ironical that weed plants are often alien species brought into new places by people, based on earlier human needs or plans that did not work well.

Those trying to collect and own plants, intending "to keep them forever" often fail, due to the inability of providing the cherished plants suitable living conditions. And like for plants, forever doesn't work for people, although that is forgotten too often. All sorts of unintended consequences are compounded later. Sometimes when people do succeed in growing a plant, but remove the species as a consequence from nature, a real and bigger problem is created. 

The independent or interdependent quest of any species to make it in the world is its main reason for existence. Species survival in the "intensive care" of human possession may be worth something, but that's another story relegated to the bottom end of living standards (Goldblatt and Manning, 1998; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; https://www.rareplants.co.uk).