I realized part of the problem was the way the pieces of information all came wrapped in layers of hedging, language that distances plants from ourselves at all costs. Calling the vasculature of a plant its nervous system could change that. I thought of Theophrastus, and his wisdom that humans needed metaphors they could connect to. The core of a tree should be called the heartwood, he said. No one has ever looked at heartwood and expected to find the vena cava. Yet it works to call to mind the right meaning: here is the tender flesh that keeps the tree alive. And here too are the channels
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