Among Flowers by Jamaica Kincaid Page B

cucumberlike pods that littered the area around me would lead to some pronouncement of recognition. It was with a sense of despair and resignation at not knowing what was in front of me that I said to Dan, “What is this?” and I was pointing to the much sought after variegated Paris, bearing a handful of fruit.
    Dan and Bleddyn, at this moment two of the most experienced plant hunters in the entire world, were a sight. All our days before, going up and down, meeting the Maoists, placating them, avoiding them, resting for a couple of days in the high-mountain heat, had turned out to be an ordeal for them. What they wanted was to be in the middle of a forest that had the widest selection of gardenworthy plants. What they wanted was to collect the seeds of plants that would make a gardener like me, someone who wanted to know about and be engaged with the world but in the most benign way possible, excited. I have made a garden in a part of the world where the flora is interesting and full of wonder enough. I only have to turn to a page in the travels of William Bartram and there I will find any number of plants (red bud, fringe tree, tulip tree) that enthrall me. But something that never escapes me as I putter about the garden, physically and mentally: desire and curiosity inform the inevitable boundaries of the garden, and boundaries, especially when they are an outgrowth of something as profound as the garden with all its holy restrictions and admonitions, must be violated. The story of the garden, when it is told by the gardener, is an homage to the gardener’s curiosity and explanation of a transgression by a transgressor.
    Sue and I never could keep up with them, they were always at least a mile ahead, in search of whatever would yield up seeds. But this new area was so interesting to them that they lingered in it. They found Paris in its regular form and then, unexpectedly, they found it in a form they had never heard of, they found a form with variegated leaves. The leaves of this plant, Paris, are usually just the color of leaves, green, but the one they found had white streaks and through their experienced eyes they could see that this was not from some deficiency in the individual plant itself; they could see that this was a natural deviation. They were excited. They were very excited. They shouted out to Sue and me, that there was a variegated Paris in this area and if we found one with good seed we would be rewarded. All along, I was so amazed at my very presence in this very place, I was so keenly aware of how ignorant I was in every way of the world in which I was in. I was in the forest but all the trees looked the same and none of them seemed familiar even though some of them I had growing in my own garden in Vermont. I was tumbling about in a tangle of fear, suspicion, and ignorance when suddenly as clear as a newly learnt letter in the alphabet I saw the variegated Paris that they were looking for, the plant, at that moment, they desired so.
    When I declaimed, “What is this?” for by then it was a declamation, I was so ignorant and because of that I was always saying “What is this?” and it went from a genuine innocent question to a whine. “What is this?” came my voice, and I could feel my companions, Dan, Bleddyn, Sue, recoil, my voice being no longer associated with human curiosity but a human dolefulness, something dull and tired, even reproachful. But this time in the forest, under a canopy of Magnolia campbellii and oak and maples, with perhaps the desired variegated Paris hidden somewhere, when I said, “What is this?” both Bleddyn and Dan leapt to the place where I pointed my walking stick, the very one I had many days ago bought in Kathmandu. Dan arrived there first, identified the plant as the much sought Paris with variegated foliage, and a magnificent display of black seeds bursting out of a vivid red fleshy matter. He plucked it and put it in a plastic