Dendros

The Desert Court convened a hearing, and Dendros attended in full leaf. The charge: being a cucumber. The evidence: the Socotra cucumber tree is, botanically, a cucumber — the only tree in the world that is one — with a swollen water-storing trunk and a cucumber's soul. "Are you a tree?" demanded the baobab's magistrates. Dendros presented the defense: woody trunk, tree height, deep roots, decades of standing. "I photosynthesize like a tree. I endure like a tree. I am simply also, technically, a salad ingredient." The court deliberated for one hot afternoon and ruled: a tree. The cucumber-ness was declared a private matter. Dendros accepted the verdict with grace and has dined out on it ever since — the only tree in the faction with a punchline for a taxonomy. "The desert," they say, "makes room for everyone. Even lunch."