Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten


October 2. 


Sunday. 

The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively. As the witch-hazel is raised above frost and can afford to be later, for this reason also I think it is so. 

The white pines have scarcely begun at all to change here, though a week ago last Wednesday they were fully changed at Bangor. There is fully a fortnight's difference, and methinks more. The witch-hazel, too, was more forward there. 

There are but few and faint autumnal tints about Walden yet. The smooth sumach is but a dull red.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 2, 1853

The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively. See October 2, 1857 ("The fringed gentian at Hubbard's Close has been out some time, and most of it already withered"); October 19, 1852 (“ It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, . . . this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower . . .the latest of all to begin to bloom, unless it be the witch-hazel. ”) and A Book of the Seasons: The Fringed Gentian.

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