On Botany and DNA

Several years ago, a plant sat dying in the lobby of the posh condo building I work at. Myrna, the resident who volunteers to provide and keep alive the lobby plants and flowers, gave me the plant to set atop a cabinet in the office where such things go to die. I placed it in its plant purgatory with little fanfare. None, as a matter of fact.

I took to dumping the remains of my water bottle into the vase—the backwash I was too lazy to take all the way back to the sink to pour out. Day after day, I deposited the tepid water from the previous night into the pot. Several times during each shift, I'd pour the KitKat-laced spittle from the bottom of my bottle over the pathetic plant.

One day Myrna noticed the plant atop the cabinet. “That thing still alive?”

“It's my DNA,” I offered.

Myrna decided it deserved a better pot. As she made the transfer, it was hard to imagine the water that poured out of that thing. She commented that no plant could survive such over-watering.

It became the emergency plant—when Myrna couldn't get to the florist after something else had really died—and periodically enjoyed its former place the lobby. I continued to dump my waste water on the thing until one day a pink bud appeared. It had never flowered before.

With Myrna temporarily slowed by a walker, the plant has again become the centerpiece of the lobby. And I've continued to generally abuse it. It sprouted a second bud.

Was it my DNA in the backwash? Had my ancestors hung the Hanging Gardens? Was I a Venus flytrap in a former life? Or perhaps eaten by one?

Questions such as these have mystified botanists since the dawn of time (or perhaps not), but one thing is for sure: This was an obvious fluke, never ever let me near your plants!