I’d loved her, the way she gave the Greek or Latin roots of every term, the way she insisted we say zo-ology instead of zoo-ology. “It’s the study of life,” she’d say. “Not zoos.” The way she articulated photosynthesis, as if speaking the private name of God. I loved the poetry of leaves converting sunlight to glucose and oxygen. And I loved the idea of adaptations, the ways plants battled for access to the sun: sprouting early or unfurling enormous leaves to catch more light or bearing tiny needles that hardly wanted any.
