Nature prepared for an infinity of springs.

November 10

November 10, 2023

P. M. – Sail to Ball's Hill with W. E. C. 

See where the muskrats have eaten much pontederia root. 

Got some donacia grubs for Harris, but find no chrysalids. 

The sight of the masses of yellow hastate leaves and flower-buds of the yellow lily, already four or six inches long, at the bottom of the river, reminds me that nature is prepared for an infinity of springs yet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 10, 1854

Harris. Thaddeus William Harris 1795-1856: the librarian of Harvard University and one of Thoreau's professors. See  note to January 1, 1853 ("Sibley told me that Agassiz told him that Harris was the greatest entomologist in the world, and gave him permission to repeat his remark.")

Got some donacia grubs for Harris. See January 19, 1854 ("[Dr, Harris] thinks that small beetle, slightly metallic, which I saw with grubs, etc., on the yellow lily roots last fall was. . . one of the Donasia (?).")

The muskrats have eaten much pontederia root. See December 26, 1859 ("So many of these houses being broken open, — twenty or thirty I see, — I look into the open hole, and find in it, in almost every instance, many pieces of the white root with the little leaf-bud curled up which I take to be the yellow lily root . . . Also I see a little coarser, what I take to be green leaf-stalk of the pontederia.")

The sight of the masses of yellow hastate leaves and flower-buds of the yellow lily reminds me that nature is prepared for an infinity of springs yet. See October 15, 1858 ("The yellow lily in the brook by the Turnpike is still expanding fresh leaves with wrinkled edges, as in the spring. "); March 7, 1853 ("Find the yellow bud of a Nuphar advena in the ditch on the Turnpike on E. Hosmer's land, bud nearly half an inch in diameter on a very thick stem, three fourths of an inch thick at base and ten inches long, four or five inches above the mud. This may have swollen somewhat during the warmest weather in the winter, after pushing up in the fall. And I see that it may, in such a case, in favorable locations, blossom at very early but irregular periods in the spring."); March 28, 1852 ("The yellow lily leaves are pushing up in the ditch beyond Hubbard's Grove, hard-rolled and triangular, with a sharp point with which to pierce the mud; green at the tips and yellow below. The leaf is rolled in from both sides to the midrib. This is, perhaps, to be regarded as the most obvious sign of advancing spring."); June 29, 1852 ("The great yellow lily, the spatter-dock, expresses well the fertility of the river."). See also October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”); December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring,"); December 2, 1852 ("There is a certain resonance and elasticity in the air that makes the least sound melodious as in spring. It is an anticipation, a looking through winter to spring."); January 12, 1855 (" Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

Nature prepared for 

an infinity of springs –

yellow lily buds.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Nature prepared for an infinity of springs

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

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