these are not cabbage leaves. but they look as if they could be an exotic form of cabbage. when i asked my husband if he agreed, he went off on a non sequitur tangent about the two kinds of cabbage he thinks about when he thinks about cabbage in the fall. there is culinary cabbage, which an early-october chill always starts him thinking about braised cabbage with bacon and onion and apple cider vinegar. then there is broadleaf cabbage, the lake weed where bass and panfish and big october pike hang out, which he loves to cast for, standing on the bench of a lund fishing boat, in three layers of sweaters and a wool kromer cap. when he had finished, i said, “so these leaves. do they look like cabbage leaves? yes or no.”

rosette of unidentified fall leaves from a singe branch

lake johanna, saint paul, minnesota