"But big plants or small, my secret is fertilizing with fish emulsion," he said.

"It hurts me that my students will have no choice but to produce this," said a schoolteacher whose husband also plants coca.

"The plant is saying to the insect, 'Go to this flower, not to that one.' "

But some neighbors say the plant will pollute the area, and have said they will go to court to block it.

"But maybe not plants," she said, offering him a tender leg of hare.

"But all the plants and shellfish said it had come only when we were there."

It was as if the plant had said: You don't need my help; you can do it yourself.

"Trees and other plants for all of our symbiotic relationships," she said.

And the plant," Edwin said, struck by another thought.

The plants there said she had walked from the west, but the plants to the west did not remember her.