By boat to Conantum.

July 23.

The late rose is now in prime along the river, a pale rose-color but very delicate, keeping up the memory of roses.

One of the most noticeable phenomena of this green-leaf season is the conspicuous reflection of light in clear breezy days from the silvery under sides of some leaves. All trees and shrubs which have light-colored or silvery under sides to their leaves, but especially the swamp white oak and the red maple, are now very bright and conspicuous in the strong wind after the rain of the morning.

In a maple swamp every maple-top stands now distinguished from the birches in their midst. Before they were confounded, but a wind comes and lifts their leaves, showing their lighter under sides, and suddenly, as by magic, the maple stands out from the birch.

There is a great deal of life in this landscape. What an airing the leaves get!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 23, 1860

The late rose is now in prime along the river, a pale rose-color but very delicate. See July 18, 1853 ("The late, or river, rose spots the copses over the water, — a great ornament to the river's brink now.”) See also Farewell, my friend:

Along the river

the memory of roses --

late rose now in prime.

All trees and shrubs which have light-colored or silvery under sides to their leaves, but especially the swamp white oak and the red maple, are now very bright and conspicuous in the strong wind after the rain of the morning. See June 11, 1860 ("I now first begin to notice the silvery under sides of the red maple and swamp white oak leaves, turned up by the wind.")

July 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 23

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.” 

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021