Nature's pace

May 19

May 19, 2023

A washing day, — a strong rippling wind, and all things bright.

Now for four or five days, - though they are now for the most part large, or since the 15th came in , the young and tender oak leaves, disposed umbrella-wise about the extremities of last year's twigs , have been very attractive from their different tints of red. Those of the black and white oaks are, methinks, especially handsome, the former already showing their minute and tender bristles, and all hand somely lobed. Some of the black oak leaves are like a rich, dark-red velvet; the white oak have a paler and more delicate tint, somewhat flesh-colored  though others are more like the black, — what S. calls a maroon red.

May 19, 2016

The white pine shoots are now two or three inches long generally, — upright light marks on the body of dark green. Those of the pitch pine are less conspicuous. Hemlock does not show yet.

Butternuts, like hickories, make a show suddenly with their large buds. 

The alders are slow to expand their leaves, but now begin to show a mass of green along the river, and with the willows, afford concealment to the birds' nests. 

The birds appear to be waiting for this screen. 

The robin's nest and eggs are the earliest I see. Saw one in the midst of a green-briar over the water the other day, before the briar had put out at all, which shows some foresight, for it will be perfectly invisible, if not inaccessible, soon. 

The great poplar is quite late to leaf, especially those that blossom; not yet do they show much, - a silvery leaf. 

The common swamp-pink is earlier to leaf but later to blossom than the nudiflora. The rhodora is late, and is naked flowering. 

With what unobserved secure dispatch nature advances! The amelanchiers have bloomed, and already both kinds have shed their blossoms and show minute green fruit. There is not an instant's pause! 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1854

Butternuts, like hickories, make a show suddenly with their large buds. See May 15 1854 ("Hickories make a show suddenly; their buds are so large.")

The common swamp-pink is earlier to leaf but later to blossom than the nudiflora.  See May 15, 1854 ("Swamp-pink leafing, say yesterday."); May 17, 1854 ("Azalea nudiflora in woods begins to leaf now."); May 19, 1859 (“Our Azalea nudiflora flowers.”); May 26, 1855 ("Swamp-pink leaf before lambkill. "); May 31, 1853 ("Azalea nudiflora, -purple azalea, pinxter-flower . . . It is a conspicuously beautiful flowering shrub, with the sweet fragrance of the common swamp-pink, but the flowers are larger and, in this case, a fine lively rosy pink . . . With a broader, somewhat downy pale-green leaf."); June 15, 1854 ("The swamp-pink apparently two or even three days in one place. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Swamp-pink

The rhodora is late, and is naked flowering. See May 17, 1853 (“The rhodora is peculiar for being, like the peach, a profusion of pink blossoms on a leafless stem. This shrub is, then, a late one to leaf out.”); May 17, 1858 ("Rhodora at Clamshell well out.”); May 18, 1853 ("The rhodora is one of the very latest leafing shrubs, for its leaf-buds are but just expanding, making scarcely any show yet, but quite leafless amid the blossoms.")

The robin's nest and eggs are the earliest I see. See May 6, 1853 ("Four large robin's eggs in an apple tree.") May 6. 1855 ("A robin’s nest with two eggs, betrayed by peeping.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring

The great poplar is quite late to leaf. See May 18, 1851 ("I think that I have made out two kinds of poplar, — the Populus tremuloides, or American aspen, and the P. grandidentata, or large American aspen, whose young leaves are downy. ") May 26, 1854 ("Why is the downy Populus grandidentata so much later than the other? The lint now begins to come off the young leaves.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Big-toothed Aspen (Populus grandidentata)

The alders are slow to expand their leaves, but now begin to show a mass of green along the river. See April 21, 1854 ("These are those early times when the rich golden-brown tassels of the alders tremble over the brooks — and not a leaf on their twigs.")

The amelanchiers . . . have shed their blossoms and show minute green fruit. See May 19, 1860 (" Now, sitting on the bank at White Pond, I do not see a single shad-bush in bloom across the pond, where they had just fairly begun on the 6th. ") See also May 10, 1854:

Shad-bush in blossom

seen afar amid gray twigs

before its own leaves.

 

May 13, 1852 ("The amelanchiers are now the prevailing flowers in the woods and swamps and sprout-lands, a very beautiful flower, with its purplish stipules and delicate drooping white blossoms. The shad-blossom days in the woods."); May 15, 1858 (" The shad-bush in bloom is now conspicuous, its white flags on all sides. Is it not the most massy and conspicuous of any wild plant now in bloom? "); May 17, 1853 ("The petals have already fallen from the Amelanchier Botryapium, and young berries are plainly forming")

Nature advances without an instant's pause. See September 17, 1839 ("Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace. The bud swells imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as though the short spring days were an eternity.");  May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant"); August 19, 1851 ("Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other.");   September 13, 1852 ("Nature never lost a day, nor a moment . . .The plant waits a whole year, and then blossoms the instant it is ready and the earth is ready for it, without the conception of delay.");  September 24, 1859 ("Great works of art have endless leisure for a background, as the universe has space. Time stands still while they are created. The artist cannot be in [a] hurry. The earth moves round the sun with inconceivable rapidity, and yet the surface of the lake is not ruffled by it."); November 8, 1860 ("Consider how persevering Nature is, and how much time she has to work in, though she works slowly."); January 14, 1861 ("Nature is slow but sure; she works no faster than need be.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature abd A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, There was an artist in the City of Kouroo

May 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 19

Nature advances

with such unobserved dispatch –

not an instant's pause.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature's Pace

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 © 2009-2024

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