The salt bush only survives by extracting moisture from the air. Now, from the ground itself, it looks feasible, if only because the nothing turns out to be a relative abundance. Feasible, but bloody hard. The eucalyptus trees look as though they are dying inwards from the edges when in fact they are staying alive by ruthlessly eliminating the limbs they can no longer support. You might call it natural deselection.
Some plants play possum until the water comes.
One of the most convincing is the resurrection rock fern. It suspends the functions of life so effectively that it can lie parched for months. By all accounts, it is an astonishing day when the headwaters start the river up and you can see the sand moistening along the bed and shooting animation into the fibres of the acacias, shrubs, perennial grasses, everything. Very soon we come to the eponymous springs. If you were to dig down.