P. M. – To Corner Spring.
So many birds that I have not attended much to any of late.
A barn swallow accompanied me across the Depot Field, methinks attracted by the insects which I started, though I saw them not, wheeling and tacking incessantly on all sides and repeatedly dashing within a rod of me. It is an agreeable sight to watch one.
Nothing lives in the air but is in rapid motion.
Now is the season of the leafing of the trees and of planting.
The fields are white with houstonias, as they will soon be yellow with buttercups.
Perchance the beginning of summer may be dated from the fully formed leaves, when dense shade (?) begins. I will see.
High blueberries at length. It is unnecessary to speak of them.
All flowers are beautiful.
The Salix alba is about out of bloom.
Pads begin to appear, though the river is high over the meadows.
A caterpillars' nest on a wild cherry.
Some apple trees in blossom; most are just ready to burst forth, the leaves being half formed.
I find the fever-bush in bloom, but apparently its blossoms are now stale. I must observe it next year. They were fresh perhaps a week ago.
Currants in bloom by Conant's Spring. Are they natives of America?
A lady’s-slipper well budded and now white.
The Viola ovata is of a deep purple blue, is darkest and has most of the red in it; the V. pedata is smooth and pale-blue, delicately tinged with purple reflections; the cucullata-is more decidedly blue, slatyblue, and darkly striated.
The white violets by the spring are rather scarce now.
The red oak leaves are very pretty and finely cut, about an inch and three quarters long. Like most young leaves, they are turned back around the twig, parasol-like.
The farmers apprehend frosts these nights.
A purplish gnaphalium with three-nerved leaves.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 20, 1852
The cucullata is more decidedly blue, slaty-blue, and darkly striated. See May 19, 1858 (“There appears to be quite a variety in the colors of the Viola cucullata. Some dark-blue, if not lilac (?), some with a very dark blue centre and whitish circumference, others dark-blue within and dark without, others all very pale blue.”); May 16, 1852 (“I observe some very pale blue Viola cuculata in the meadows. ”); May 31, 1858 (“I saw . . . to-day a white V. cucullata. ”)
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