I almost skipped over this article because I thought reading about collecting houseplants wouldn't be worth the time. But Howey's story of Mat, the collector who gets addicted to amassing his garden of carnivorous plants, is very much worth it. It's curious how something so trivial and accessible (Mat can just order these plants off of Facebook), can lead to such environment harm.

I'm also a little curious how Mat was let off so easily: maybe the judge had a little more insight into his personality. From the story, I didn't empathize with him so much - ordering plants online for cheap is bound to mean that they were poached or at least not following good procedure (especially when nurseries are charging 10x the price). But I suppose that some people have the "collector" mentality (whether it's figurines, Nintendo games, etc.) that I just don't have and can't really understand.