Raffia

Raffia dresses the village. Her leaves are the longest on Earth — twenty-five meters of frond, a green river pouring from the crown — and when they fall, the weavers come: thatch for roofs, fiber for baskets, cloth for the everyday. She is the Wanderers' outfitter, the tree you wear. "A leaf," she says, "should have a second career." Her crown is a fountain of green; her trunk is stout and patient; her usefulness is so total the faction jokes she will be reincarnated as a house. Young palms ask whether being useful diminishes the mystery. She drops another twenty-five meters of frond at their feet. "Mystery," she says, "is for trees no one needs. I am needed daily, which is the better magic — the kind with a roof."