Ways of representing

I always had a hard time trying to represent vegetation effectively (of efficiently?), the fact is that represent vegetation as an abstract diagram (which the tendency is to have better looking than if you try to represent vegetation as it is) is not as easy as it seems.

So today I found this diagram that represents the photo below it




Well, if you don't get yet... I am going to explain it: What you see on the diagram is the species arranged by the color of the flowers (or the tone of green they have), and the circles represents about the space that they are going to need once planted. And of course the form of the whole group. Which is brilliant!!

Here is another example, this one by R&Sie, that shows species, size and some other facts that I am not able to see: