Sourdough

by Robin Sloan

“These are Meyer lemons,” Horace said as we passed the trees. “Named for Frank Nicholas Meyer. Dutch by birth, but an agent of the United States government. He worked for the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Seed and Plant Introduction before the First World War. I thought of him when Jaina Mitra spoke of her microbial survey. Meyer and his cohort were hunters for larger prey. They canvassed the world and sent back living samples of plants thought to be useful to the advancement of the American economy. Meyer worked in China. He sent the first soybean to America. And persimmons! Any persimmon grown in this country today comes from that lineage. And of course, there are these lemons—named for him. Meyer died in China. He drowned in the Yangtze, pushed from a riverboat.” I looked at the trees with new appreciation. “He sent these across the Pacific, and the Spanish sent tomatoes to Italy in the sixteenth century, and the Portuguese, chilies to India. And maybe a comet brought it all to Earth—who knows? I quite agree with Jaina Mitra.” He plucked a lemon from a tree. “Nothing is natural.”