The Facts of Life

What if a plant could learn from experience? James Abercrombie is about to find out. Returning to visit his old mentor, Professor Melchizedek Hobbs, the eccentric principal of Springville Free Academy, James discovers something remarkable in the professor's greenhouse: the Zulu rose, a botanical specimen that appears to possess memory and the ability to profit from past experience, a quality the professor once declared distinguished animals from plants. As James reunites with his Victorian-era teacher, all knuckles and nervous gestures, he finds himself drawn into an experiment that challenges everything biology taught him about the vegetable kingdom. P. Schuyler Miller writes with the dry wit of a man who spent his career reviewing science fiction, crafting a story that feels like a lost chapter from H.G. Wells meeting a late-night conversation in an old library. It's a gentle, whimsical exploration of consciousness and what we assume we know about the living world, told with period charm and quiet wonder.