A Book of the Seasons: The Soapwort Gentian (Gentiana saponaria)

 

I would make a chart of our life, 

know why just this circle of creatures 

completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

Soapwort gentian -

Why come these blue flowers

thus late in the year?

September 3, 1853

September 3. The soapwort gentian out abundantly in Flint's Bridge Lane, apparently for a week; a surprisingly deep, faintly purplish blue. Crowded bunches of ten or a dozen sessile and closed narrow or oblong diamond or sharp dome shape flowers. The whole bunch like many sharp domes of an Oriental city crowded together. I have here actually drawn my pen round one.

It is the flowering of the sky. The sky has descended and kissed the earth. In (at top) a whorl of clear, smooth, rich green leaves. Why come these blue flowers thus late in the year? A dome-like crowd of domelets. September 3, 1853

September 5. A soapwort gentian by river; remarkably early (?). The top has been bitten off! September 5, 1854

September 6. Soapwort gentian, out not long. September 6, 1857

September 8.  Gentiana saponaria out.  September 8, 1852

September 19. The soapwort gentian now. September 19, 1851

September 19.  The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises, -- solid bulbs of blue from the shade, the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river, after so much has been mown. September 19, 1852

September 22. The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now. September 22, 1852

September 25. You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank. September 25, 1857

September 27. The soapwort gentian looks like a flower prematurely killed by the frost.  September 27, 1851

October 7. I notice the Viola ovata, houstonia, Ranunculus repens, caducous polygala, small scratch-grass polygonum, autumnal dandelion ( very abundant, yellowing the low turfy grounds and hills), small bushy white aster, a few goldenrods, Polygonum hydropiperoides and the unknown flowerless bidens, soapwort gentian (now turned dark purple) . . . October 7, 1852

October 23.  Sal Cummings, a thorough countrywoman, conversant with nuts and berries, calls the soapwort gentian “blue vengeance,” mistaking the word. A masculine wild eyed woman of the fields. October 23, 1857

October 29. Soapwort gentian and pasture thistle still. October 29, 1855

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

The Soapwort Gentian (Gentiana saponaria)

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 © 2009-2025