Grace Lily
Nymphaea moratoria
A Lapland water lily that, for the nine weeks it is in flower, stops every legal deadline in sight of its pond: tax, leases and evictions.
Extra Place Basil
Ocimum gratissimum
A fokontany-office basil from Toamasina adds one name to every list made beside it: a living person no register has ever recorded.
Tithe-Map Pitcher
Sarracenia purpurea
A purple pitcher plant whose tin chapel turned up in a 1790 vestry minute, just in time to beat a council demolition order.
Freehold Glasswort
Sarcocornia quinqueflora
A Tasmanian saltmarsh glasswort gives the crabs and one wombat sheltering in it freehold title, stamped and registered in Hobart.
Company Mistletoe
Peraxilla tetrapetala
From 1967 to 1994 a Te Anau florist could see herself only with someone else in the mirror, so her neighbour came round every morning at 7.40.
Bonded Thyme
Thymus pannonicus
A creeping thyme seized at the Serbian border weighs 31 grams to its owner and cannot be moved by anyone else until the paperwork is signed.
Stranger's Cactus
Echinopsis peregrina
In 1933 a Hoyvík woman asked a court to declare her husband an impostor, though the harbour clerk, the town and his wage book all disagreed.
Countersigned Rambler
Rosa libaviensis
From 1904, whenever a Libau glassblower signed his name, his hand wrote the name of his rose instead, including on his will.