Nature Always Finds a Way

A column of foliage rises from the floor of one of the disused bays at Wangi Power Station, growing through cracks in the concrete and reaching up toward a broken roof panel where daylight comes in. The plant is some kind of opportunistic colonising species that takes advantage of any available light and moisture, common in disused industrial sites. The leaves are pale green, the stem reaches roughly head height. Around the base of the plant, smaller seedlings are coming up. The concrete around the cracks is darkened from years of moisture working through.

Power stations are built specifically to keep nature out: sealed roofs, concrete floors, controlled lighting, mechanical ventilation. Once the maintenance stops, that defence falls quickly. Roofs leak. Light gets in. Seeds blow through. By a decade or two after closure, plants that don't normally grow inside buildings will have established themselves wherever the conditions allow. Wangi closed in 1986. The plant in this photograph has been here for some portion of those nearly forty years. It will not stay forever. The conditions for indoor growth are marginal, and most plants like this die back to the seed stage in a year or two. But there will always be another one taking over.