so there is plenty of water around and the sun is high in the sky for weeks. The one thing they are short of however is minerals, as rocks shattered by frost in the harsh winter and ground down to a unrefined sand are unsuitable to be absorbed by the plants. The richest source of nutrients to be found are the dead decomposing bodies of the animals who live here, and the largest of these animals, the musk ox provides an excellent start in life for the seeds which are blown into its huge dome of a skull and they thrive in the soil surrounding the corpse which is enriched with nutrients.Plants who live on top mountains can find that they have not only to endure the freezing nightly temperatures but also the blazing daytime sun. On Mount Kenya plants have to survive these conditions daily as the weather alternates between winter and summer every twenty-four hours. One type of lobelia has risen to the challenge and developed an ingenious way of dealing with its predicament. Its centre forms a watertight cup that holds three quarters of a gallon of liquid, which each night freezes, on the surface, the water underneath stays liquid and therefore prevents any damage to the bud which is immersed within it. The plant now faces a second hazard, the heat of the sun evaporating the liquid, which would leave the lobelia defenceless at night. However the liquid is not rainwater but a substance secreted from a special gland and it contains a slime, which hinders evaporation. Preservation against evaporation is also of vital importance to the plants that live in deserts. In The Namib Desert in Africa, one of the harshest deserts in the world, every drop of moisture has to be stored and used to the fullest, and the plants who live in this dry unrelenting heat have come up with many unconventional ways of scrimping and saving what little they have. One of the stranger methods of storing water belongs to the quiver tree, like the others belonging...
