Tanks for your vote! The only changes that I made at my image were to increase the luminance and a bit the contrast.
When this idea come on my mind, I searched in dictionary and I found this: “3.Unproductiveness; infertility: the poverty of the soil.” (From dictionary.com)
In this case, I thing the image was on the challenge theme.
Starved of water and nutrients, is the basic message here. I would have chosen a different title to “poverty”, as I feel this looses some of the impact.
interesting composition, but the lighting is a little strong, and some of the leaves are not as sharp as they could be. beyond that, though, i'm sure you're getting nailed for not meeting the challenge by all those who think of poverty as it relates to humans...you know, 'the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions'