Nor is there any guarantee that the end of a drought will
permit young trees to recolonise the burnt, parched and blighted landscape: fast - growing grass and shrub species will get there first and block any regrowth.
But just as the felling of a large
tree allows
young plants to sprout in the newly sunny ground that it formerly shaded, the passing of a major scientist
permits new ideas to spring up in the intellectual space she or he once dominated.