Plants provide us with everything from food and medicine to the oxygen we breathe, but far from being just utilitarian 'capital' are active beings with life stories and memories, says Richard Mabey.Late this summer I was at the helm of our electric boat on the Norfolk Broads while four far-from-diminutive botanists dangled over the side trying to snatch a sprig of waterweed from under the surface. It was a vertiginous 15 minutes, but eventually a small tuft of the fabled holly-leaved naiad was drawntriumphantly from the water like some botanical Excalibur.
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