The layout of Lafayette Street where it meets Prince Street was reconstructed recently, so that it now includes a short median. For human purposes, the median is engineered to separate the bicycle lane from the main flow of traffic, and to mark the beginning of the off-curb parking spaces. For the purposes of other living things, it also happens to offer a concrete-bounded patch of open dirt.

There have been a lot of wild marijuana plants spotted growing on the streets of New York this summer. Today we learn about hallucinogenic plants turning up in Brooklyn alleys. Why pay for drugs when you can pick them yourself?