Transcendental Luther: "God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars"

Did Luther say "God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars"?  If one bases their proof on the number of hits from a quick Internet search for this quote, he most certainly did! But as the axiom should go: something isn't true simply because a bunch of people in cyberspace say it is.  One blogger rightly questioned the quote, classifying it as "more stuff that Martin Luther didn't say." There was also a discussion here which  questioned the veracity of the statement.

I offer below my own investigation of the quote. It's fascinating to try and uncover if Luther actually said something. It's even more fascinating to investigate how a particular quote was attributed to Luther, or how it took on the current form it has. We'll see with this quote, Luther probably didn't say it, though he said something similar.

Documentation

Most often the quote has no meaningful documentation, if any at all. The earliest usages I could find  in its current popular form stem from the late 1800's. By searching texts on Google Books from the nineteenth-century, the quote seems to simply spring into literary existence during that period. The appearance of the quote increases in the twentieth-century books.

The earliest nineteenth-century attribution I could find of this precise English wording was from a historical novel,  or rather, "historical fiction" about the life of Martin Luther entitled, The Schonberg-Cotta Family (1862) written by Elizabeth Rundle Charles.  This author fictionally "examined the life and personal influence of the young Martin Luther on the family of his printer." In one passage, Rundle-Charles describes Luther speaking to his wife:

In spring he loves to direct her attention to the little points and tufts of life peeping everywhere from the brown earth or the bare branches. "Who," he said, "that had never witnessed a springtime would have guessed, two months since, that those lifeless branches held concealed all that hidden power of life? It will be thus with us at the resurrection. God writes His Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but in trees, and flowers, and clouds, and stars."  [source]

According to the reviews I've read of Rundle-Charles, she was a prolific author, her Luther novel though being her most popular book. Some years back I found a copy of it in a pile of disorganized books in an antique store.  I've since come across a number of copies in the same sort of setting. Her book apparently was popular enough that cheap copies are still laying around in junk stores. My copy states the following just previous to the contents page:

The portions of these Chronicles which refer to Luther, Melancthon, Frederic of Saxony, and other historical persons, can be verified from Luther’s “Tischreden;” Luther’s “Briefe, Sendschreiben und Bedenken;” edited by De Wette; the four volumes called, “Geist aus Luther's Schriften,” edited by F. W. Lomler, C. F. Lucius, Dr. T. Rust, L. Sackreuter, and Dr. Ernst Zimmermann; Tutschmann’s “Friedrich der Weise;” the “History of the Reformation,” by Ranke; and that by D'Aubigné; with the ordinary English historical works relating to the period.

I don't question that Rundle-Charles actually read these sources and utilized them for her fictional Luther account. One biography says Rundle-Charles was instructed in "numerous languages" so perhaps she really did utilize these sources for her Luther citations. Interestingly, Rundle-Charles went on to put out another Luther book: Watchwords for the Warfare of Life From Doctor Martin Luther (1869). The preface posts the same sort of bibliographical information.  In another edition the preface states Rundle-Charles did indeed do the translation work,

The selections in this volume have all been freshly translated from Luther’s own German or Latin, with the exception of the extracts taken from the sixteenth century translation of the Commentary on the Galatians. The majority of the extracts are from the Letters and the Tischreden.-The Author.

Included in this follow-up volume, Rundle-Charles includes the following excerpt:

In the year 1539, on the 11th of April, Doctor Martin Luther was in his garden, and with many a deep thought, he looked at the trees - how fair and lovely they were, budding and blossoming and growing green; he said,” Praised be God the Creator, who in the springtime out of dead creatures makes all living again. Look at the little twigs,” he said, “so sweet and full; pregnant with new life. There we have a beautiful image of the Resurrection of the dead. The winter is death; the summer is the Resurrection of the dead, for then all live again and grow green.”

I  suspect Rundle-Charles was using the same source as the quote we're searching for. Notice the similarities: both describe Luther in the springtime, both describe bare branches that begin the blooming cycle again,  both link this to the resurrection. In this later volume she mentioned the majority of her selections were from letters or the Tischreden (Table Talk). Even though a date is included leading one to assume the source was a letter, (April 11, 1539), the way it unfolds sounds much more like a Table Talk statement.

I don't know which edition of the Tischreden Rundle-Charles had, but there is a Table Talk entry dated April 11, 1539 that says:

This comment can be found in : WA 4:337 (4484) in a mixed German / Latin form. This would be a comment recorded by Anthony Lauterbach. Lauterbach was careful with his dates (LW 54:253), so it appears he was the Genesis of "April 11,1539."  The content of this Table Talk entry is very similar  to that put forth by Rundle-Charles in her 1569 book.  There's also another a Table Talk comment that has a similar thrust,   WA 4:369. This comment is from April 28-29 1539. There Luther says,

No. 4542: Pleasures of a May Day in Late April April 28, 1539
 Afterward he gave thought to the pleasant weather of the month of May, whose blooms are a parable of the resurrection of the dead. “How pleasant the trees are! How delightfully green everything’s beginning to be! It’s like a charming day in May. I don’t recall one like it. If it continues this way it will be a very fruitful year and the world will be crammed full. Ah, would that we could trust God! If God can take such delight in our earthly sojourn, what must it be like in the life to come?”) (LW. 54:351).

Conclusion
Did Luther say,  "God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars"? If the source for this English quote is indeed Elizabeth Rundle Charles, I don't think he did say it. It appears that it was her literary license with the sources she utilized to create her fictional account of Luther. In other words, she embellished Luther's comments.  Interestingly though I came across a sermon from Luther that says the following:

Such comfort is also imparted in the beautiful parable of the budding trees, which He gives them that they may all the better appropriate to themselves this consolation. In spring, He says, when winter ceases and the whole earth becomes new; when the cold departs and the warmth takes its place; when the dry trees become green and blossom again, tell me, how does all this begin? Is it not true that buds first begin to swell, then to open? Then every one says that winter is past and summer will soon be here. Let this parable be your teacher, and the trees in the field your book, that you may learn to know how to await the last day. For God has written this article of the last day and resurrection of the dead not only in books, but also in trees and other creatures. As summer surely will follow when the sap rises in the trees, and they put forth leaves; so when the earth shall quake, the heavens tremble, and the sun and moon look dark and gloomy, then be no more afraid than you are when the young leaves appear and summer is about to come. Such signs shall be to you like the sap and leaflets on the trees, that you may with joy look for the eternal summer, and know that there shall now be an end of your distress and anguish. For this wretched life on earth is like the unfruitful winter when everything dries up, dies and decays. But it shall then have an end, and the beautiful, eternal summer shall come, namely, the kingdom of God, by which the kingdom of the devil shall be destroyed, on account of which you have had to suffer so much in this world. For in this world you must live among ungodly, wicked, false, penurious people, who blaspheme and slander the gospel, and seek to bring about all manner of misfortune. This you must see and hear every day, and may expect it to become still worse. From this I will redeem you by my coming, that you may no more see nor suffer such things. 

So perhaps Luther didn't say ""God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars," rather, he preached "God has written this article of the last day and resurrection of the dead not only in books, but also in trees and other creatures."

Addendum: Other References to Luther's Comment from April 11,1539

It was really touching to witness the manner in which the most common occurrences would arouse in Luther reflections of piety on the goodness of God, on the state of man before the fall, on the life to come, and other serious topics. Thus, a beautiful bough loaded with cherries, brought and put on the table by doctor Jonas, a few fishes from the little pond in his garden, that his wife placed joyfully on the board, the mere sight of a rose, or any other equally simple incident would rouse these pious sentiments in him. On the 9th of April, 1539, the doctor was walking in his garden, attentively looking at the trees and flowers, then in all the brilliancy of spring verdure ; he exclaimed with admiration, "Glory to God, who, from the dead creation, thus raises up life again in the spring-time. Behold these branches, how strong, how beautiful they are! Already they teem, and are big with the fruit which they will bring forth. They offer a beautiful image of the resurrection of all men. The winter season represents death; the summer-tide, the resurrection. Then all things live again, all is verdant. [source]

Addendum #2
CARM discussion.