I Think That I Shall Never See ...

When archaeologists dig up Los Angeles in a few millenniums, they may be puzzled by some of the fossils they find along a 1.68-mile stretch of Jefferson Boulevard. For there, in a gesture of economy and perhaps utility, Los Angeles County has installed 900 plastic peperomias, pit-tosporums and ti palms, among other flora, to decorate the roadway.

The beauty of it, says the county, is that while the plastics cost $74,504 to install, the ersatz trees will not have to be watered or pruned, and the leaves will not shed.

Of course, as the Los Angeles Times said in an editorial, "Neither will they know the seasons, or incline to the breeze, and neither will they delight the eye with their variety. Probably next we will have plastic birds and plastic butterflies, a sort of Madame Tussaud's of nature that recalls what once was, before progress triumphed."

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