Early purple grass

Agrostis scabra
(rough bentgrass)

July 11.

As I go along the railroad causeways I am interested now by patches of Agrostis scabra. Drooping and waving in the wind a rod or two over amid the red-top and herd's-grass of A.Wheeler's meadow,  this grass gives a pale purple sheen to those parts, the most purple impression of any grass.

It is an exceedingly fine slender-branched grass, less noticeable close at hand than in a favorable light at a distance. You will see, thus, scattered over a meadow, little flecks and patches of it, almost like a flat purplish cobweb of the morning.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  July 11, 1860

Agrostis scabra. Drooping and waving in the wind gives a pale purple sheen to those parts, the most purple impression of any grass. See July 3, 1859 ("A large patch of Agrostis scabra a very interesting purple with its fine waving top, mixed with blue-eyed grass.”).

July 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 11

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