Perhaps it's better to suggest that plants which grow into their own foundations eventually reach a limit whereby it's hard for the plant to continue getting th

Perhaps it's better to suggest that plants which grow into their own foundations eventually reach a limit whereby it's hard for the plant to continue getting the nutrients it needs without being essentially blocked by its prior scaffolding? Bigger plants are the ones that reach this limit later, e.g. have evolved ways of using prior root systems/trunks to their benefit overtime. Plants can essentially live forever through cloning, where the plant lays new roots and isn't stuck on its former shell. On the other hand stressed plants go to seed (a good evolutionary move) and statistically no plant lives forever in the wild, with fires and etc, so perhaps this data is more of a testament to how fragile a plant is... e.g. how easily it's killed. It makes sense that smaller = more fragile, more easily burnt/frozen to death, etc.