I Too Explore the Plants, the Trees

Kapok Tree at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

May 12, 2023 — By now, everybody knows plant life planted itself deep in Sebi’s DNA. Remember that passage in Sojourn to Honduras Sojourn to Healing?

On one of our daily rides around the town of La Ceiba, Honduras, he suddenly behaved in the most incredible way. I watched him leap from his truck, leave it idling in traffic, and dash his limber legs to an open field to inspect a plant that caught his eye. He examined his diamond-in-the-rough in what appeared to be widespread patches of weeds.

I’m not likely to do that, jump out of my car on a Los Angeles County freeway to check out the gorgeous spring wildflowers that downpours of rain left behind. But I will check them out at places like The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. I stopped by a couple of weeks ago and like Sebi, a tree caught my eye. And boy what a surprise.

Two hundred years ago, cotton was king in southern states in America—South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama. (My great-grandparents and ancestors picked it in South Carolina.) The soft, fluffy fiber grows on a plant shrub. But a tree? Yes. The kapok tree. It’s native to tropical regions around the world, but Henry Huntington decided to have one in his front yard, right outside his mansion, now a museum.