The buds are prepared for spring

December 1.

To Cliffs. 

The snow keeps off unusually. 

The landscape is the color of a russet apple which has no golden cheek. The sunset sky supplies that. But though it be crude to bite, it yields a pleasant acid flavor. 

The year looks back toward summer, and a summer smile is reflected in her face. 

There is in these days a coolness in the air which makes me hesitate to call them Indian summer.

At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring,

• the large bright yellowish and reddish buds of the swamp-pink, 
• the already downy ones of the Populus tremuloides and the willows, 
• the red ones of the blueberry, 
• the long, sharp ones of the amelanchier, 
• the spear-shaped ones of the viburnum; 

also the catkins of the alders and birches.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 1, 1852

At this season I observe the form of the buds.  See October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”); November 4, 1857 ("I notice the new and as yet unswollen scales of willow catkins or buds"); November 5, 1855 ("Swamp-pink buds now begin to show.");  December 6, 1856 ("On all sides, in swamps and about their edges and in the woods, the bare shrubs are sprinkled with buds, more or less noticeable and pretty, their little gemmae or gems, their most vital and attractive parts now, almost all the greenness and color left, greens and salads for the birds and rabbits."); December 11, 1855 ("I thread the tangle of the spruce swamp, admiring . . . the great yellow buds of the swamp-pink, the round red buds of the high blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda"); December 31, 1859 ("The oblong-conical sterile flower-buds or catkins of the sweet-gale, half a dozen at the end of each black twig, dark-red, oblong-conical, spotted with black, and about half an inch long, are among the most interesting buds of the winter.")