1. A hope
It has been so long since I remember the Earth being a healthy place to live, a place full
of green pastures and trees, full with flowering fields, amazing animals and a diversity of
ecosystems. This is Dr. José Cruz Arzón and this 21th century in the year 2120. The Earth of this
era is a world completely dominated by human beings, the diversity of animals and plants that
we remembered we had no longer exist, yet we still have preserved some of the most common
animals and plants. Global Warming and air pollution had taken control of the Earth so quickly
that I do not know, as an ecologist, how long the human being can live in this contaminated
world that we created. It is still a mystery for me. One day, while practicing my profession, I
discovered something amazing and shocking, it was something that not even I writing this letter
to you, the future generations, can still believe it. It was something that could open the eyes of
our modern civilization once and for all. This could be a light of hope to our polluted world.
I currently live in the beautiful island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Strangely Puerto
Rico has retained a portion of its beauty. I was walking by the near areas of “El Yunque”
National Forest doing one of my many habits as an ecologist, observing plants. I was recording
what I was seeing and taking some samples for studies in my home lab. Suddenly, I saw it. There
it was. It was the strangest organism I have ever seen in my life as an ecologist. Immediately I
knew that it was something not yet discovered. It was obviously a plant, but a very weird plant, it
did not have the normal pigmentation that plants have, its stem was a red-brown color and its
leaves were also red. It was not too tall, it was half of my size almost 3 ft tall, and its roots were
not completely rooted and attached to the ground as normal plants do, they were just anchored
superficially like tentacles coming out of the plant. When I took a closer look, its leaves and stem
were thicker than the ones of common plants. Then, when I lifted my head I found myself
surrounded not by two or three, but by 15 or maybe 20 specimen of this plant, so I did not
hesitate to take one to the lab to do microscopic analyses of its physiological and cellular
structure.
Back in the lab, I used my Bright Field microscope to analyse some cells taken from the
leaves. What I saw was astonished, something amazing, a very great discovery; I saw a cell that
only forms in some animals but not in plants. I saw the beginning of the formation of a bone cell.
It was very weird, because, the leaves were not rough and hard. They were thicker but not hard.
So then I realize that these leaves were made of cartilage. Evolutionary speaking, cartilage gave
birth to the modern bone. Anyways, one question remained unanswered: How do plants develop
cartilage or bone and why? I went to sleep happy and excited but thinking about this question.
When I woke up, I realize that the plant was not in the place that I left it. The plant just moved. I
could not believe what my eyes just saw. I keep looking for the reason why the plant just moved.
Of course, now all makes sense. The cells that were forming the cartilage are cells for
movement; cartilage is found in animals and it is used mainly for movement and support. So I

2. concluded that the plant had characteristics for movement. Another think that I discovered is that
the plant had vascular tissues, but they were not the normal vascular tissues that normal plants
have. It was another brownish substance which transported a molecule that had a very high
affinity to carbon dioxide. All these discoveries were so amazing but yet I did not know why this
plant has evolved to have these characteristics or, how these characteristics help the plant survive
in this habitat? I did not have the answer to these questions until three days after.
After doing some sampling, investigating under a microscope, and going back to the
place where I found the plant, I finally knew the answers to these enigmas. It was clear that the
cartilage found in those leaves, stem and roots were for movement, but why? Well, I had to
remind myself of the polluted world that we live in; plants can’t stand high levels of ground and
air pollution, so they have evolved to have the ability to move to safer places and to habitat to
less polluted ground. It was awesome! Amazing I should say! Not only that, but the roots have a
very high concentration of cells that secrete these types of hormones, those uncharacterized
hormones control root movement. Of course, the plant does not move long distances as animals
do, but after several hours, the plant can actually coordinate itself to move from the place it was,
because the roots were not totally anchored to the ground. The most important discovery that I
made was the answer to why the plant had this molecule with more affinity to carbon dioxide.
Since our world is filled with air pollution, it can be difficult for a plant to get its nutrients from
the air, so this plant has evolved to have this molecule; it can better capture the carbon dioxide
and used it for the plant’s metabolism. This is what I am showing in these pictures: the first and
the fourth show the cartilage tissue of the leaves and stem, respectively; the second and the third
show the flow of the substance with the high carbon dioxide affinity molecule through the
vascular tissues. It was magnificent! Splendid! Something that could shock the world and the
community of science.
The scientific name that I gave to this plant is Sperare mundis meaning “hope of the
world”. I gave this name to this extraordinary plant because we can take it as a message from
nature to us humans. It is a message saying that we are still on time, still on time to fix what we
have done, to reestablish the natural order as the way it was. Nature is always finding a way to
adapt to the environment that, unfortunately, we have damaged. But, it is time for us to respond
to that message. They need us to help them reestablish the order, but we need them to live. That
is why I’m recording this. For you the future generations, to not let your society make the same
mistake that we did. We are still on time to fix what we did. Nature is wonderful and brilliant,
and it demonstrated it by this new adaptive behavior. Do not blind your eyes and cover your ears
to the voice of nature. It is yelling: “Save me, save me!” Don’t you hear it? Please, heal the
world, and rescue these brilliant and splendid organisms that are part of the wonderful, complex
but beautiful phenomena of life.