Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Persimmon Finally Within Reach


Knowing plants can change the way you see a town like Princeton. Students crossing this bridge over Washington Road to the new chemistry building might appreciate its form, but I doubt there's one in a thousand who would find great meaning in the tide of foliage that has finally reached parity with the railing.

I, however, have been waiting with anticipation, invested with special knowledge of what that foliage bears.

There, in the leaf nodes, can't you see it? Persimmons, or the beginnings thereof. By luck or the planter's intent, this persimmon is a female, which means this could be the year that we can, at last, reach through the mesh with a Chaplinesque nonchalance, and pluck ripe fruit from a persimmon tree.

1 comment: