The box arrived on a Tuesday in February, packed in heat packs that had long gone cold. Inside was a Philodendron spiritus-sancti I'd waited two years to find, and which I had no business unboxing in the kitchen. I did anyway. I held the leaf up to the window, ran a thumb along the petiole, and felt that small private thrill collectors will recognize. Then I did the right thing for once: I walked it down the hall, past the growing room, and into a converted closet at the back of the apartment that I have come to call the isolation shelf.
Three weeks later, a yellow sticky card above that plant had collected eleven thrips. Eleven. The plant had looked clean. The seller was reputable. If I had set it on the shelf next to my verrucosum and gloriosum, I would be telling a very different story now — probably one involving systemics, stripped leaves, and the slow grief of watching velvet go silver-stippled and dull.