AN AMATEURS COLUMN - Some idle speculations about inesemb 'windows'

摘要

The soil surface in arid climes having seasonally high sunlight levels can become extremely hot. Therefore, particularly low-growing plants in positions exposed to very high insolation may have to survive extreme temperatures. Yet research indicates that plants such as Lithops that grow sunken (embedded) in the soil surface have their thermal budgets closely related to that of their surrounding soil horizons. Furthermore, although soil surfaces do become dangerously hot, just a centimetre or so downthey start to cool rapidly. (Turner & Picker 1993).