Review: Darwin at Walden

A long time in the publishing queue 125 years, says the editor Bradley Dean – but worth waiting for is Henry
Thoreau’s Faith in a Seed (Island Press in the US, via Kogan Page in Britain
pp 284, £17.95). It contains ‘The Dispersion of Seeds’, in which
Thoreau observes how his local woodlands grow and regenerate from seeds,
and several shorter natural history pieces. A mixture of recordings from
the wild and historical enquiry, these are delightful, containing Thoreau’s
notes about grasses and their seeds inspired by On the Origin of Species,
and his account of wild fruits. According to Thoreau, wild raspberries should
be ‘at their height about the 15th July’, as are black thimbleberries, which
he describes as an ‘honest and homely berry’