Ebracteola fulleri from clump to colony

This Ebracteola fulleri plant or plants raises or raise the question as to what it is, what they are, clump or stand? Did one spreading plant develop spaces among its parts as rooting allowed independence for the previously connected bits, or did several plants germinate here close together? Intuitively the former option is likely what really happened.

The clump probably lost old, connecting branches through drought or other stress, pushing new growth from surviving nodes. Initially tightly packed, time allowed for expansion. So, the genetically identical parts gained physical independence, and formed a colony, a likely destiny of the mature clump.

And every adventitious root on a liberated component is expected to develop into an independent taproot on a cloned plant, living in their gregarious community (Williamson, 2010; Smith, et al, 1998; iNaturalist).