Lyre Trees And Other Details

Starfarers.

We have to reread carefully in order to appreciate every future historical detail.

In Chapter 2, human beings explore the Tau Cetian planet that they are beginning to call Puerto, Limani, Kiang or Harbor where some twin-trunked trees are shaped like lyres and vegetation is not green but yellow or orange with occasional red.

In Chapter 17, Harbor, only eleven and a half light-years from Sol, is a good place for Kith ships, including Argosy, Eagle and Fleetwing, to stop for news beamed from Earth before they proceed there. In the Kith village, there is a lyre tree to one side of a turf street. The Kith speak Kithic.

In Chapter 49, the Kith village remains but Kithish has become only a ceremonial language. There is also a city named Argosy founded by Kithfolk who had stopped starfaring. Lyre trees line a boulevard where lawns are either native golden or imported Terrestrial green. Fleetwing, approaching Harbor, is in danger of being lost.

Over the millennia, we see:

lyre-shaped trees becoming "lyre trees";

yellow, orange, gold ground cover but with grass imported later;

Kithic becoming Kithish and ceasing to be used in daily speech;

a city named after a ship;

the Kith declining.

Poul Anderson had to remember details like vegetation in different future histories, e.g., atlantis weed on Avalon in the Technic History.