There is a bit of a sense of loss in the final pages; we get information about the accidental advent of penicillin and something of a mourning of the countless remedies and scientific progresses lost because strange passed-down-through-family remedies weren't recorded. But Wilson provides an answer: an exhibit, of course, that breathes to life into bizarre and strange and doubtful yet believable practices from all corners of the world. It's a role the MJT fits well; preserving the bizarre past as a method of influencing out-of-box thinking in the present and future.
We end with a horn protruding from a human head, in a section called 'Cerebral Growth', and thus the ant-fungi metaphor comes full circle, with Weschler having grown a stem of his own and accepted the spore the MJT planted within him: his final line is 'So, go figure', as he tries mightily to leave the MJT, already late for a flight. The seed was planted and throughout the course of the novel grew within Weschler to the point of acceptance of the unknown-to-be-true wonders of the MJT, and one of the final scenes is him wondering 'Why not have a Museum like this in modern day Los Angeles?'. Why not, indeed.
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