Apple forests!

From the PBS version of Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire, I learned that Kazakhstan is home to apple forests! Apples originated in Central Asia, and they still have vast tracts of wild apple trees there, although threatened by development. (Related articles in Orion and the Wall Street Journal, also posted here, and a longer article by Pollan, maybe from the book.)

I also learned from The Botany of Desire that with his daylily hybridizing, R. is "operating a plant brothel." *laugh*