Clepsydranthus vergensWaterclock Bloom

When the exposed lake bed is opened, the cracked clayey silt at the surface gives way after only two finger-widths to a cooler layer of fine sand. The thick root of Telerhiza follows this boundary sideways. Above it, the ground dries and splits; below it, a slightly saline dampness remains. Its habit of running outward rather than downward appears to be an adjustment to these shallow threads of water along the shore.

The flower opens only slightly in the cool of morning and closes its cup before noon. Even on days when no insects were seen, dust from the aged anthers had fallen onto the stigma of the same flower. If distant shoots are often branches of one root, crossing with another plant need not be frequent. Flowering in dry years seems less a means of abundance than an insurance against the eventual breaking of the old root.

Beneath a withered flower lie only a few light seeds, thin enough to be worked into the mud by the next flooding. Once the water returns, the shoots collapse and leave no mark of where they stood. Yet fishing and herding families along the shore read low-water years from the spread of these flowers. A flat where they appear widely is said to remain poor for landing boats, but suitable for grazing, for some time afterward.