Reflections and Knowledge September 17, 2018

"This is the first day of the rest of your life."  Right, and what does that relate to here?  Well, I roll my eyes, fuss and complain, the heat and the humidity are not my friends.  You have never heard me complain no matter how cold it is; that is my deal with the weather.

Physotegia  Obedience plant

Solidago Goldenrod

Symphyotrichum novae-angliae New England Asters

Ageratina altissima White Snakeroot

Through all the phases of the season from among the earliest, Virginia Bluebells, to the happy hint that the weather is cooling, here come TODAY the first fall blooms in my garden.  The Obedience Plant, started a few days ago, but just today in the still warm, damp day, the Goldenrods the White Snakeroot, the New England Asters are here.  Hooray. (Not to say that some Green-headed Coneflower and Black-eyed Susan and those welcome spreading of Petunias which come back from years ago aren't also adding color.)

It might even get cool enough to invite me to try to tame the jungle, clear the path to the front door and the driveway and the sidewalk to the back.  Will get to that.  (The picture taking at 5:30 PM required protecting the iPad under my shirt through raindrops starting.)

OTHER SUBJECT
I get the New York Times Book Review mailed to my house and I'm only about two months behind, since I took a pile with me in August to the Catskills where I have time to catch up on them.  I found a review that interested me, and might interest my botanically interested colleagues, too.  It is the biography of David Hosack (pronounced Hozzick during his lifetime), American Eden by Victoria Johnson.  Born in 1769, besides being the botanist who set up the first botanic garden in the United States, he was the doctor who accompanied Hamilton and Burr to their duel. Sometimes I can forgive poorer quality writing if the subject is important to me, but no forgiveness needed here. Interesting that in his lifetime they bemoaned the incursion of invasive, alien plants into the native plants, as we are still doing.

ANOTHER SUBJECT
In the library I noticed on display The Book of Seeds edited by Paul Smith. Using my muscles to pick it up (655 pages), it had lifesize photos of the seeds of world-wide trees mostly, but also some northeast native plants. Should we add to the write-up of Red Trillium T. erectum  "Unpleasant odor. Roots traditionally used as an aid to childbirth, giving rise to the common name Birthwort.  Leaf veins arranged in network pattern rather than parallel to one another."