Some years ago, we obtained a pretty little house plant with dark green, white-speckled leaves. The plant is known as a scindapsus pictus, or “argyraeus.” Not long after my wife installed it on the baker’s rack in the kitchen, it began to climb the wall behind the rack. We were utterly charmed by the little suckers the plant used to attach itself, and by what a living presence it was, even sitting among some other, more dramatically-leaved plants. Each tiny, pale shoot of jade at the end of the vine was cause for exclamation. Several weeks ago, while cleaning around the baker’s rack, I managed to tear the vine away…