Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
Darwin was obsessed by it, although even he never trained his weedy Asian shrub to twitch its leaves to the sound of music. But in a small town in northern Thailand ...
Mar 11, 2003 | Dr. Pradit Kampermpool marches through his plant nursery, past row upon row of exotic orchids, before stopping, his chest proudly puffed out, in front of an unremarkable, weedy-looking plant. This plant, he says gravely, cost him a fortune. He developed complicated breeding programs and followed them religiously for almost 10 years to produce it, he says. This plant, he says, is a dancing plant.
"It's a dancing plant!"
He pauses for effect. Meanwhile, the sun comes up over the green fields. The pointed little leaves of Kampermpool's dancing plant nod and bounce in the breeze. Somewhere, a bird warbles. Kampermpool is still waiting.
"This plant," he says again slowly for emphasis, "is a dancing plant."
Kampermpool stands maybe 5 and a half feet tall. He strides through the nursery, disappearing occasionally behind a screen of orchid stems to reappear seconds later on the other side, his green-and-white polka-dot shirt flashing between gaps in the swaying thicket.
It is almost 6:30 in the morning and we are standing in Kampermpool's plant nursery in Udon Thani Province, in tropical northern Thailand. It is already hot and humid in the small and unremarkable town, which sits about 35 miles south of the Laos border surrounded by rice paddies and knots of thick jungle. A mile or so to the south of the nursery is downtown Udon Thani, which consists of brightly lit Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises, pizza joints and multiplex movie theaters. Another mile farther south, a small and crowded station links the town by train to Bangkok, about 10 bumpy hours southwest.
At night, elephant handlers -- bent, little toothless mahouts -- park their elephants implausibly under the store awnings downtown, to shelter from the rain that comes nightly. But this morning at his nursery, it is not yet 7 o'clock, the sun is still low in the sky, and Kampermpool, who is 65, has already been up for hours, singing softly to his dancing plant. It responds to music, he says proudly. "This is the third generation, my friend," Kampermpool continues, pointing at the dancing plant again. "It's a Desmodium gyrans. It's the third generation, OK? Third crossing, OK? Self-pollinated, my friend, third time, third generation."
The dancing plant grows unchecked in a secluded enclosure at the back of Kampermpool's nursery, bursting from a brick trough filled with dark wet soil. Black netting hangs in folds overhead to block the sun's harmful rays, and barbed wire prevents thieves from breaking in to the enclosure at night and stealing a prized sample of the plant. Surly workers kick halfheartedly at clumps of mud in the fields; bales of barbed wire bake in the sun. To the untrained eye, Kampermpool's nursery looks more like a gulag.
Kampermpool doesn't care. He cares only about his dancing plant. If a fire broke out tomorrow among the orchids, jumping steadily from trough to trough and advancing slowly, relentlessly, through the nursery, Dr. Pradit Kampermpool would think of only one thing: The Plant.
He would run selflessly through thick banks of smoke to raise the alarm, to build a firebreak with orchids, to take an emergency clipping of his dancing plant and store it in the damp safety of his mouth, to do something! ... anything! ... just to save it ... save The Plant!
Share this observation with Kampermpool and he'll take it as a veiled threat, stepping backward cautiously, narrowing his eyes, and asking, "What fire? Tomorrow? What do you mean, fire?" After that, he clams up. He's sulking. The sun climbs higher. The fields get warmer. The pointed little leaves of his dancing plant -- his Desmodium gyrans -- nod and bounce in the breeze. The bird warbles again. He shrugs. "I spent seven years on this plant," he explains sheepishly.
The Plant twitches.
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