Claiming that counting plants tells you everything you want to know about their growing success in the mountains is like claiming you know the whole fungi-community by looking only at mushrooms.
Mushrooms, those pretty ones with their nice funny heads, are only the fruits, the apples of a massive apple tree, one acorn of a huge oak. The whole body of the fungus is below the surface, and it is there that all the action takes place.
Understanding a fungus requires some digging, as you will want to know what is going on underneath the earth’s surface. Knowing plants might in the end require the same effort.
An important part of a plant’s life indeed happens in the invisible ‘black box’ that is underneath the soil: it is there that they find their nutrients, it is there they dig for water. For a major part, it is decided under the soil surface who is going to live and who will have to die.
Counting and measuring aboveground plant parts only gives the final result of an ongoing fight below the surface.
So from now on, I will put in more effort to challenge this black box and find out what is happening there. I will start digging for answers to my questions in the dirt and the mud, as it is there that all solutions are hiding.