Sometimes simple questions can infuse you without being wished for and they can haunt your mind for a long time before you can eradicate them. I received one of these from Prince Yrkanis whose naivety of his youth managed to defeat my botanical knowledge.

The Prince had then been not more years old than the quantity of fingers I possess, and his father had made me his tutor at the same time as he had appointed me to be the organic architect of his Kingdom. The memory of this afternoon clearly comes to mind for me, and I still remember leaning over a sapling of the greenhouse that my regular watering did not seem to satisfy.

With his neck stretched and balancing on his toes Yrkanis was watching the Rotoa growing in a corner of the room. Liria and I had been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to acclimate these plants with the vegetation of the forest, and this one had persevered a little better than others.

"It has no leaves?"

Getting only barely distracted from my botanical questions, I mechanically won some time:

"Hmm?"

"The Rotoa, it has no leaves?" asked the boy.

Without looking up from my work, I think I replied:

"This is a plant that grows in the Prime Roots. It does not conceive light, therefore it does not need leaves."

"Ah."

Under my hands small Irena leaves cracked, parched like from the sun of the Burning Desert, despite of that a small lake formed at it's feet.

"And the flowers - are they edible?"

"The blossoms? No. They look succulent, but nobody eats the flowers, some even say they are toxic."

"And is this true?"

"No, I don't think so."

The Prince gathered his thoughts for a moment and then continued:

"And Armas, do they eat the flowers of the Rotoa?"

"Neither Armas, nor any other animal. The blossoms are not palatable and you would get sick, my Prince," I said a bit abruptly since my patience was eroding.

"Then the thorns – what use are they?"

With a small knife I turned the humus around a sapling that refused to drink, in order to incress the water that would penetrate the roots. Time was pressing, plus only a single leaf of the small shrub was green, the rest had been replaced by a dull and ominous yellow.

"If nothing wants to eat the flowers, what use are they?" he insisted.

"Rotoas don't have thorns, my Prince. And I really have to focus on that..."

"They do have! This one has! There."

Now completely distracted and also intrigued I got up to join the young Yrkanis. His little finger outstretched he scraped the earth around the roots. Hidden beneath the humus, small pointed growths defended the underground branches of the plant, and I was surprised that I had never noticed this.

The child was silent for a moment, deep in thought and in his observation of the Rotoa before resuming in a deciding tone:

"Anyway, it does not make sense: no one could attack from the ground, the danger always comes from above."

"This is quite true."

"But then; the thorns, what use are they?"

Standing next to the child I watched this curious plant a moment before answering, defeated:

"I do not know. I have no idea, my Prince."

"Ah," Yrkanis replied, before going to look at another plant.

Even if the Prince had seemed satisfied with my answer, this was not the case for me. This issue continued to haunt me for years and my knowledge has been vexed for a long time by the small thorns that seem to serve no purpose.

"Personal Notes on Botany and Horticulture" by Lenardi Bravichi.