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"); See also September 29, 1857 ("All sorts of men come to Cattle-Show. I see one with a blue hat. I hear that some have gathered fringed gentian. Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves. "); October 1, 1858 ("The fringed gentians are now in prime."); 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, by Henry Thoreau, The Fringed Gentian.

The witch-hazel.  See October 4, 1858 ("Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime"); October 9, 1851 ("The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside."); October 11, 1858 ("Witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves!"); October 13, 1859 ("I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom"); October 18, 1858 ("By the brook, witch-hazel, as an underwood, is in the height of its change, but elsewhere exposed large bushes are bare"); October 20, 1852 ("The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers") 

The white pines have scarcely begun at all to change here. See October 2, 1851 ("Some of the white pines on Fair Haven Hill have just reached the acme of their fall; others have almost entirely shed their leaves, and they are scattered over the ground and the walls"); October 2, 1859 ("So many maple and pine and other leaves have now fallen that in the woods, at least, you walk over a carpet of fallen leaves."); See also  September 21, 1853 ("The white pines near Bangor perfectly parti-colored and falling to-day."); October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast"); October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish"); October 3, 1856 (" The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall ."); October 3, 1858 ("White pines fairly begin to change.") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

There are but few and faint autumnal tints about Walden yet.  See October 2, 1857 ("Generally speaking, it is only the edge or pediment of the woods that shows the bright autumnal tints yet"). Compare October 1, 1852 (" Young trees and bushes by the water and meadows are generally beginning to glow red and yellow. The young and tender trees begin to assume the autumnal tints more generally."); October 1, 1854 ("The young black birches about Walden, next the south shore, are now commony clear pale yellow, very distinct at distance, like bright-yellow white birches, so slender amid the dense growth of oaks and evergreens on the steep shores."); October 3, 1856 ("Especially the hillsides about Walden begin to wear these autumnal tints in the cooler air."); October 3, 1858 ("About the pond I see maples of all their tints, and black birches (on the southwest side) clear pale yellow.")

The smooth sumach is but a dull red. See  October 2, 1856 ("The mountain sumach now a dark scarlet quite generally."); see also October 1, 1852 ("The sumachs are generally crimson (darker than scarlet")

October 2. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  October 2

Long changed at Bangor

white pines have scarcely begun

 at all to change here.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Gentian in Hubbard's Close

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 © 2009-2025

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