"IT'S PRETTY, BUT IT JUST GROWS too slowly. How does 2 sound dollar?" And so an obsession began. My wife, Cathy, and I were visiting a greenhouse in the town where she taught school. Pushed to the back of one bench was a small pot containing a plant unlike any I had seen before — rosettes of velvety, almost black leaves, with beautiful coppery reddish veins and strange fleshy stems crawling across the soil. I was an avid grower of many kinds of plants, including one or two phalaenopsis, but this was unique. When I picked it up, the owner saw a chance to get rid of something taking up bench space. I would have paid much more for it, but managed to keep a straight face as I handed over my $2 and escaped with my prize.
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