the whole point to the alkaloids is to make creation possible. I mean, if you're eaten before you can set seed, you've just been an herbaceous blip.What's reprodcutive age for an American artist? Cecil Taylor performed at Newport in '55, I think, and won a MacCarthur in 1990 (I think...it was the early '90s, at any rate).
Camouflage is important too. If your flower is too showy you can give yourself away amongst the protective grass.
The above left is a Toumeya papyracantha, probably about 20 years old. The type locality for this bizarre cactus with grass-like spines is Santa Fe. Hardly anybody who lives here knows it exists.
On the Galapagos Islands, without predation, Opuntia echios v. gigantea, which otherwise may have remained just another "prickly pear," grows into a 30 foot tall tree with a 30 foot wide trunk. It's something like a trust fund plant, or a grant recipient, or a plant with patronage.
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