Grow Fast or Die
White Sands National Monument
New Mexico
2019
With shifting dunes, sand often starts to bury plants. The only way to stay alive is to grow fast enough to keep up with the sand. But the inverse can also happen, i.e., the sand around a plant may be disappearing, blown away by the wind. In that case a plant needs to be able to create an island of stabilized ground around roots. The plant can then end up surviving, albeit on a pedestal of sandy soil sometimes reaching 15 or 20 feet high.
15-20 feet high!! Wow! Did you see any of these? All the pics I’ve ever seen from White Sands look more like this shot, with the plant nearly buried in the sand.
Hah! When I wrote that I thought someone would ask me if I had a photo of one. I tried but couldn’t find an interesting angle on any of them so never did take a shot. But an example from the internet can be found here.