When I saw the seeds in the tramway gift shop, I had to buy them. They said no food, plants, or natural products off the ship but nothing about what we could bring back on.

Safely tucked away in a hidden pocket of my purse through Customs, when I get home, I plant them in the red clay and sparse grass of my backyard.

I never knew how fast this stuff could grow.

© 2017 Nortina Simmons

Photo of fireweed taken on my trip to Alaska. Fireweed is not the state flower, but it might as well be. This stuff is everywhere, and because it needs little to no nutrients to grow, it’s one of the first plants you’ll see sprouting up between the cracks of bare rock and sediment left behind by the retreating glacier.