Plants that only grow there

Plants cannot move, so every one you can see has survived every winter and every drought that place has had. A frost-sensitive crop puts a hard floor under the minimum temperature. A tree that stores water in its trunk says the dry season runs long. Trees standing in water for months are not flooded by accident — that is an adaptation to a river that rises and falls by metres each year.

Shape carries as much information as species. A crown shaped like an upturned umbrella is harvesting fog. Pale powdery bark is sunscreen. Dead leaves kept around a stem are insulation against nightly frost. Even spacing across bare ground is competition for water, not planting.