Friday Flora

Say some slick huckster oozes onto the late-night TV screen and spins you a deal too good to be true. A wonder of a machine! Solar powered! It actually removes greenhouse gases from the air! It's so green, it's actually green! You just open the fuel tank, put in a few simple salts (nothing you couldn’t put in your own food), and you put in water—yes, ladies and gentlemen, pure water!—and this miracle of a machine will set to work. No toxic chemicals, no hazardous wastes, this marvel of modern engineering will spin out perfumes to bewitch the senses and dyes to dazzle the eye. This machine will do all that—and more! It will actually make copies of itself—so if you like the results (and I think you will!), you can give this machine to your friends absolutely for free! No royalties, no copyrights, no legalities. Just give it away!

You would be justified in being somewhat skeptical of the huckster selling this product. Unless the huckster was trying to sell Sophronitella coernua.