As we stood near the botanical gardens, Langston spit a tangerine seed into the dirt. Fran lunged for that seed and slipped it into the bag. “We can’t have outsiders propagating,” she explained. “See: there are no citrus trees on Santa Catalina. If one were to grow, what would happen? It would wreck the ecosystem of the entire island. Just like the other outsider trees—eucalyptus and palm trees. We’d have to kill that tree, no matter how much we all love fresh orange juice. It would be for the best. We must do everything we can to protect this very fragile, very special place.”
