Lab Girl

by Hope Jahren

In my mind it is 1860, and I see a ragged cohort of men stumble upon a living root while they are digging more than one hundred feet belowground. I see them stand gaping in the fetid air, slowly overcoming their disbelief that this root could somehow be attached to some tree that is growing far above them. In fact, both parties registered their disbelief that day: the acacia tree was also undoubtedly surprised to find its roots exposed from the rock that confined it, and produced a flood of hormones in response, first locally and then eventually diffusing through every cell of its being. When those men moved soil and rock in order to form an unprecedented path between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, they found a daring plant that had made an unprecedented path of its own. They found an acacia tree that had moved soil and rock, through years of dry failure until its improbable success.