ATDTDA (17): prairie-smoke (472.2)

[Michael Lee Bailey]

I didn't know it was a plant, thought that prairie-smoke
referred to, well, brush fires in dry weather and grass-mist
in wet.

Plants - definitely a good thing in Pynchon (one finds
oneself concurring) --- he uses a level of detail beyond
my immediate familiarity (case in point, present reference) 
-- part of the (what one might call) superior granularity
of the research & presentation one expects

Other good things -
music (almost always)
light (usually)


-- directional thought here - not only is 
Merle heading east but so are the chums, and
so now are Lake & Deuce --


back to plants, trying to remember what page I found the
(evocative of GR) phrase "lust-in-idleness" on the other day...


Mark Kohut 
    I think we can see how much plants, vegetation, that root of life....is a great POSITIVE
    in TRP's vision.

    Tim Strzechowski <dedalus204 at comcast.net> wrote:

        "Down they journeyed, out of the mountains, seldom looking back, down through the prairie-smoke of eastern Colorado ..." (p. 473).


        This is a beautiful plant that is usually less than a foot tall, with numerous basal leaves and hairy stems. The flowers are a rose color, but the fruits are the showiest parts of the plant, with plumes up to two inches long. Mature plants may form dense mats. Prairie Smoke will flower after its second year if grown from seed, if grown from division, it will flower its first year. [...]

        http://www.nps.gov/archive/miss/restoration/gallery/sedges/prairie_smoke.html

        Here's a pdf. file on "geum triflorum":
        http://web4.msue.msu.edu/mnfi/abstracts/botany/Geum_triflorum.pdf

        http://www.reflectiveimages.com/prairiesmoke.htm

        http://www.carsoncity.k12.mi.us/~hsstudent/wildflowers00/rosaceae/prairiesmoke.html


        This is another example of Pynchon's use of vegetation and foliage as an image, symbol, etc.

        Cf. _Vineland_, for example:

        "Later than usual one summer morning in 1984, Zoyd Wheeler drifted awake in sunlight through a creeping fig that hung in the window ..." (3).


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