To E. Hubbard's Wood.

November 26

November 26.

I see in the open field east of Trillium Wood a few pitch pines springing up, from seeds blown from the wood a dozen or fifteen rods off. Here is one just noticeable on the sod - though by most it would be mistaken for a single sprig of moss - that came from the seed this year.

It is, as it were, a little green star with many rays, half an inch in diameter, lifted an inch and a half above the ground on a slender stem. What a feeble beginning for so long-lived a tree!

By the next fall it will be a star of greater magnitude, and in a few years, if not disturbed, these seedlings will alter the face of nature here. How significant, how ominous, the presence of these green moss-like stars is to the grass, heralding its doom!

Thus from pasture this portion of the earth's surface becomes forest. These which are now mistaken for mosses in the grass may become lofty trees which will endure two hundred years, under which no vestige of this grass will be left.

But where did the pitch pines stand originally? Who cleared the land for its seedlings to spring up in? Who knows but the fires or clearings of the Indians may have to do with the presence of these trees there?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 26, 1860

But where did the pitch pines stand originally? See note to November 13, 1860 ("J. Baker’s pitch pines south of upper wood-path north of his house abundantly confirm the rule of young white pines under pitch pines.")