<SNIP>
"What is this?" he fearfully asked.
"A salad, of course," she said with a pride-filled voice.
He peered again inside the plastic bowl. He could notice
strange-looking
petals, chopped stems, and what he thought--hoped--were leaves. What
the
heck had she put in there?!
Well, let's check the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy :
"FLOWERS OF LIFE, THE : Native to the planet Optera, home of the Invid, a
bunch of big snail-like gents who are notorious for not giving a damn
where
your towel is, as long as you're working in their slave camps. When
cultured
properly in a Matrix, the Flowers of Life form Protoculture, which the
Guide
describes as "Whoo! That is some messed-up juju! I mean, look what it did
to
my ride! Hoooar! etc." Flowers of Life can be transplanted, if you don't
mind being enslaved by big snails, and can be eaten, if you don't mind
going
insane and developing cosmic powers, and, of course, have enough Italian
dressing to give it a real zing."
A minor nitpick. In "The End Of The Circle", Book 18 and the final book
chronologicaly of the McKinney series of Robotech books, you find out that
the Flowers of Life are originally native to Earth and were transplanted to
the Invid home world by an ancient spacefarer/god and wiped out on Earth.
Kheram Coldstar
kheram@crosswinds.net
http://www.crosswinds.net/~kheram/
"You have been tried by Time and by Time found wanting. Your sentence,
Oblivion"
Kheram Coldstar