nsis, squirrel corn.[citation needed] In the herb layer of beech forest and hornbeam-sessile oak forest, tuberous, bulbous and rhizomous plants are abundant. They comprise the spring geophytes (tuberous, bulbous and rhizomous). Desert ephemerals This normally bare desert in Namaqualand, Goegap Nature Reserve in South Africa has a proliferation of flowers and desert ephemerals during the brief spring wet season Desert ephemerals, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, are plants which are adapted to take advantage of the very short favourable seasons in deserts. Annual plants in deserts may use the weedy ephemeral strategy to survive in the desert environment. These species survive the dry seasons through seed dormancy. Alternatively, some perennial desert plants may die back to their underground parts and become dormant when there is not enough water available. Mud flat ephemerals Most water bodies have natural changes in water level over a year. For example, rivers have higher water periods after melting snow or rainy seasons, followed by natural low water periods. Large lakes have similar seasonal changes, but also chang