Rock Gardens for the Dummy Botanist

Alpine plant blooming in snow

If, like one of our researchers, you were at one time privy to the members-only discussion boards at eHow.com, you're already aware that more than one of the site's writers was a complete idiot. One active discussion board was intended to help "explain" titles to the contributors when they couldn't figure them out for themselves. Of course, the typical reason they couldn't just google the title (the usual method) was that the title didn't make any sense or was so general that it couldn't be answered in DMS's all-holy 300 to 500 word content size. That never stopped some people, of course; people who wanted that $10 ($15, $25, $whatever) so badly they'd write anything that would fit; like Lee Morgan, who attacked the question, "What Kind of Plants Live on Mountains?"

Now someone who seems to know a little about the topic would probably mention the thin, rocky soil;  short growing season; high UV radiation, rapid temperature fluctuations; probability of deep snow; etc. And Lee, in fact, sort of touches on those environmental conditions:

"There are species of plants that exist in just about every climate across the globe, even in harsh conditions where few living things thrive. Mountains are one example of a plant ecosystem that flourishes during parts of the year despite low oxygen levels and temperatures. In certain mountain ranges, there are species of plants, sometimes rare, that manage to survive from season to season for many years."

That's straight from the "well, duh!" department, right? Not to mention that Lee misuses "ecosystem" and somehow seems to think plants are only in the mountains for part of the year. Double-duh... But on to the content: why Morgan found it necessary to focus on rare plants is a mystery, but that's what he did. He listed exactly three (what eHow once called a "short list"): Haleakala Silversword Alpine Fleabane Fairy Primrose Why Lee chose these three specific plants also remains a mystery, but it gets worse. Morgan describes the plants in loving detail and even tells where one might find them (all three are rather rare). What he fails to do is explain anything about these plants', or any other plants', adaptations to the harsh environments he mentions; although whether the Haleakala Silversword must survive

"...wild temperature swings caused by blazing tropical sun on one end of the spectrum and high winds and snowstorms on the other..." 

...remains questionable: in our opinion, an occasional dusting of snow is hardly a "snowstorm"! Still, Morgan's approach to the question is, frankly, dirt stupid. Instead of a list of three individual plant species, the Antisocial Network's house horticulturist suggests that a list of survival strategies would have been more useful to the original questioner. Hell, you can get a much better answer than this at wikipedia's entry on alpine plants.

We forgot, though: eHow didn't let people cite wikipedia; even though most of the people who contribute information to wikipedia (and edit what's already there) know far more about the topic at hand than the drones eHow uses -- drones like Lee Morgan, the Dumbass of the Day when it comes to plants for your rock garden!

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