Erica vestita attracting attention

There is a softness in the colouring of flowers and leaves at this Erica vestita stem-tip. The floral flourish in the corolla tubes will catch many eyes.

Nectar-feeding birds and insects are the desired ones to take notice, as they distribute the pollen among flowers of the species. Cross-pollination enhances the tribe. Herbivores that snap off stem-tips, flowers and all, are significant to consider, flower dangers that will also see them. These bushes bear lots of branches though, and browsers meander, looking for greener pastures and bushes continually.  So, some flowers survive their onslaught. People will pick flowers, take pictures, and change landscapes in endless ways, their actions variable in impact and threat. Nothing plants can do about them, apart from bearing more flowers.

Without their functional flamboyancy being noticed, flowers won’t get pollinated, and their species would disappear. With it, enemies are inevitably alerted when they attract pollinators. As a result some of the plants will die, or miss a season without setting seed, sometimes all of them in the extinction of a species. Life means risk. Not calculated risk, for the bushes don’t calculate. But risk is often adequately provided for by plant numbers produced by a species, or by specimen resilience, given the particular threats to species longevity.

All living things play a survival percentage game throughout life, and throughout the duration of their species as living entities. And all doggedly share life with all that live nearby.