Only a small part of the tree keeps growing.
This, he explained, is because, over time, the house will literally become part of the tree it is attached to.
The most familiar species, those of animals and plants, will take up only a tiny part of the tree.
The former means that the world's databases are filling up with genes from every part of the tree of life.
But in one of those oddities of bureaucratic logic, who would fix the problem would depend on what part of the tree was at fault.
The 5-10mm shoots pierce the tree's growth cells and fool them into thinking they are part of the tree itself.
"Animals and fungi are in one part of the tree, and plants are far away in another part," said Laura A. Katz, an evolutionary biologist at Smith College.
The metaphor is revealing, for it indicates that for Descartes as for Bacon and Galileo the most important part of the tree was the trunk.
"I use every part of the tree that is appealing, but I don't have any rules about not using other materials," Mr. Wheelwright said.
Autumn phenology is an important part of the tree growing season that is still poorly understood.
(The summary at the end of Nicomachean Ethics X.9 describes only the visible part of the tree).
