Each plant has its turn.

September 17

Nabulus alba 

Thursday. 

I go to Fair Haven Hill, looking at the varieties of nabalus, which have a singular prominence now in all woods and roadsides. The lower leaves are very much eaten by insects. 

How perfectly each plant has its turn! – as if the seasons revolved for it alone. Two months ago it would have taken a sharp eye to have detected this plant. 

One of those great puffballs, three inches in diameter, ripe.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 17, 1857

The varieties of nabalus, which have a singular prominence now in all woods and roadsides:

• Nabalus alba = Prenanthes alba (White Lettuce) 
• Nabalus altissimus = Prenanthes altissima (Tall White Lettuce) 
• Nabalus boottii = Prenanthes bootie (Boot’s Rattlesnake Root.)
• Nabalus fraseri = Prenanthes serpentaria (Lion’s-foot)

See September 23, 1857 (“Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint's Pond road in the woods.”), and  note to September 13, 1857 ("The nabalus family generally, apparently now in prime.”)

How perfectly each plant has its turn! – as if the seasons revolved for it alone. See September 17, 1839 ("Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace. The bud swells imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as though the short spring days were an eternity.") See also September 10, 1860 ("Almost every plant, however humble, has thus its day, and sooner or later becomes the characteristic feature of some part of the landscape or other."); September 13, 1852 (“How earnestly and rapidly each creature, each flower, is fulfilling its part while its day lasts! . . . The plant waits a whole year, and then blossoms the instant it is ready and the earth is ready for it, without the conception of delay.”); August 19, 1851("The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it.”); July 19, 1851 (" Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then? Methinks my seasons revolve more slowly than those of nature; I am differently timed. Here I am thirty-four years old, and yet my life is almost wholly unexpanded. How much is in the germ! I may say I am unborn. If my curve is large, why bend it to a smaller circle? If life is a waiting, so be it. I am contented. Already the goldenrod is budded, but I can make no haste for that. Let a man step to the music which he hears, however measured.”)

One of those great puffballs.  See September 4, 1856 ("Large puffballs, sometime."); September 26, 1852 ("I see now ripe, large (three-inch), very dark chocolate(?)-colored puffballs"); October 2, 1858 ("A large chocolate-colored puffball “smokes.”")

September 17. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 17

Each plant has its turn! –

as if the seasons revolve 

for it alone.

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, Each plant has its turn.

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-570917