Sap is flowing

March 5.

A misty afternoon, but warm, threatening rain. I find myself inspecting little granules, as it were, on the bark of trees, little shields or apothecia springing from a thallus. Such is the mood of my mind, and I call it studying lichens. The habit of looking at things microscopically, as the lichens on the trees and rocks, really prevents my seeing aught else in a walk. To the lichenist is not the shield (or rather the apothecium) of a lichen disproportionately large compared with the universe? The minute apothecium of the pertusaria, which the woodchopper never detected, occupies so large a space in my eye at present as to shut out a great part of the world. Surely I might take wider views.


So round even to the white bridge, where the red maple buds are already much expanded, foretelling summer, though our eyes see only winter as yet. As I sit under their boughs, looking into the sky, I suddenly see the myriad black dots of the expanded buds against the sky. Their sap is flowing.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 5, 1852

Studying lichens. The habit of looking at things microscopically . . . occupies so large a space in my eye at present as to shut out a great part of the world.  See ; July 23, 1851 (" But this habit of close observation, — in Humboldt, Darwin, and others. Is it to be kept up long, this science?"); September 13, 1852 (“I have the habit of attention to such excess that my senses get no rest, but suffer from a constant strain. When I have found myself ever looking down and confining my gaze to the flowers, I have thought it might be well to get into the habit of observing the clouds as a corrective; but no! that study would be just as bad. It is as bad to study stars and clouds as flowers and stones.”): February 5, 1853 ("It is a lichen day. . . . All the world seems a great lichen and to grow like one to-day”);March 23, 1853 (“I feel that I am dissipated by so many observations. . . . I have almost a slight, dry headache as the result of all this observing.”); See also Chapter 3, Thoreau and Humboldtean Science in Seeing New Worlds; and Chapter 19, Henry David Thoreau and Humboldt in The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World

Surely I might take wider views See April 2, 1852 ("It appears to me that, to one standing on the heights of philosophy, mankind and the works of man will have sunk out of sight altogether; that man is altogether too much insisted on. The poet says the proper study of mankind is man. I say, study to forget all that; take wider views of the universe. That is the egotism of the race. In order to avoid delusions, I would fain let man go by and behold a universe in which man is but as a grain of sand. It is a test I would apply to my companion, — can he forget man? What is the village, city, State, nation, aye the civilized world, that it should concern a man so much? I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb much of the attention. Man is but the place where I stand, and the prospect hence is infinite. It is not a chamber of mirrors which reflect me. When I reflect, I find that there is other than me. The universe is larger than enough for man's abode. Man is a past phenomenon to philosophy.")

Sap is flowing. See February 21, 1857 ("Am surprised to see this afternoon a boy collecting red maple sap from some trees behind George Hubbard's. It runs freely. The earliest sap I made to flow last year was March 14th.”); March 14, 1856 (“[A]bove Pinxter Swamp, one red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. Tapping this, I was surprised to find it flow freely. . . . "); March 15, 1856 ("Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap")

A misty afternoon , but warm , threatening rain . Standing on Walden , whose eastern shore is laid waste , men walking on the hillside a quarter of a mile off are sin- gularly interesting objects , seen through this mist , which has the effect of a mirage . The persons of the walkers black on the snowy ground , and the horizon limited , makes them the more important in the scene . This kind of weather is very favorable to our landscape . I must not forget the lichen - painted boles of the beeches . . .

I find myself inspecting little granules, as it were, on the bark of trees, little shields or apothecia springing from a thallus, such is the mood of my mind, and I call it studying lichens. That is merely the prospect which is afforded me. It is short commons and innutritious. Surely I might take wider views. The habit of looking at things microscopically, as the lichens on the trees and rocks really prevents my seeing aught else in a walk. Would it not be noble to study the shield of the sun on the thallus of the sky, cerulean, which scatters its infinite sporules of light through the universe? To the lichenist is not the shield (or rather the apothecium of a lichen disproportionately large compared with the universe? The minute apothecium of the pertusaria , which the woodchopper never detected, occupies so large a space in my eye at present as to shut out a great part of the world.