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This delicate life comes forth into an almost impossibly harsh environment of shifting sands and fearsome dessication.
If the shoot survives this opening chapter of growth, its roots will start to trap and to stabilise these sands and its leaves, as they drop, will then create a minute area of richer earth.
In time, another seed will fall here and like a ripple in a limpid pool so this patch of life will spread to create its own destiny and ecology.
Over many years, a soil will be created, and the many roots will anchor down the underlying grains of weathered rock and shell.
In turn, the bushes will start to grow here, and the small plants will have to move elsewhere in search of light and space.
The climax of this natural succession is the arrival of the trees, and the move toward high forest which is the ultimate expression of this sub tropical landscape.
This incredible insignificant coloniser is the founder of the feast of the forest giants yet to come.
Photo: Plant seedling on the dunes of Atlanterra. Courtesy of the author.