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Plants are often
faced with the choice of accommodating themselves to the climate or to
the competition of plants and trees. Alpines are most commonly plants
that have, by the process of natural selection, chosen to accommodate
themselves to an almost impossible set of growing conditions rather than
to compete with other plants in a more forgiving climate. Their primary
threat is their harsh environment.
Often these plants
have rubbery tissue which allows them to freeze and thaw daily.
Sometimes alpines bear their foliage flat to the ground or in dense
"buns" to deflect the ferocity of the wind and to preserve moisture.
Others may exhibit these characteristics during most of the year but
then, rather surprisingly, take advantage of their short spring/summer
by sending out inordinately long flower stems. They may also bear
astonishingly large blossoms for such small bases. Root structures of
these plants most often will be very long and fibrous reaching a depth
that is twenty or thirty times the height above ground. Such roots not
only form a reliable anchor in a rather loose natural growing medium but
also insure access to a constant source of water and nutrients well
beneath the surface.
Even so, these
plants can survive and prosper on what would be considered absolute
minimum fertilization to other categories of plants. They absorb minute
quantities of nitrogen from rainwater and minerals that dissolve from
the stones around them. Planting alpines in soil that is richly laden
with organic material will sometimes expose them to fungi and bacteria
that will cause them to rot. It is the beauty and perhaps the irony of
alpines that they have taught themselves to withstand the meteorological
furies of mother nature but have relatively little ability to fight off
microbial competition. |
