I am hoping that this will be an easy question for an Asimov fan. I am
looking for the name of an Isaac Asimov short story about a planet
with two communities that are each tending a giant vine that extends
around the planet. Each group has mythic stories about the other. They
are low-technology societies. An interstellar construction crew comes
through to tell them there is other life in the universe, their myths
are false and their planet is going to be destroyed. There is a
bibliography of Asimov work here:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/Isaac_Asimov.htm , but I
don't have the interest or time, or possibly memory, to sort through
all of the collections to figure out where I read this story.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 31 May 2005 11:06 PDT

Are you certain that the story was written by Isaac Asimov? Your
description has some similarity to a 1967 short story by Kit Reed,
"The Vine."

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Clarification of Question by kelly592-ga on 02 Jun 2005 08:59 PDT

I suppose I'm not sure. It's been a long time, and I may have had it
wrong to begin with. I'm going to try to find the text of the Reed
story to see if that's it. Thank you for the lead. Clearly, if that's
it, you win the big $8 prize!

If you locate the book, please let me know. I'd love to read it.

I am pretty familiar with all of Asimov's fiction, but this one
doesn't sound familiar at all.

The story I am looking for did not turn out to be the suggested Kit
Reed story. So the question remains open, if only for the next few
hours unless I can figure out how to extend it. Bummer.