554th page of Gray

May 24. 

A. M. -— To Beck Stow’s. 

Buttonwood not open. Celandine pollen. Butternut pollen, apparently a day or two. 

Black oak pollen yesterday, at least. Scarlet oak the same, but a little later. The staminate flowers of the first are on long and handsome tassels for three or four inches along the extremities of last year’s shoots, depending five inches (sometimes six) by four in width and quite dense and thick. 

The scarlet oak tassels are hardly half as long; the leaves, much greener and smoother and now somewhat wilted, emit a sweet odor, which those of the black do not. Both these oaks are apparently more forward at top, where I cannot see them.

Mountain-ash open apparently yesterday.

Chestnut-sided Warbler

In woods the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. It is exploring low trees and bushes, often along stems about young leaves, and frequently or after short pauses utters its somewhat summer-yellowbird like note, say, tchip tchip, chip chip (quick), tche tche ter tchéa, —— sprayey and rasping and faint. Another, further off. 

Bog Rosemary

Andromeda Polifolia now in prime, but the leaves are apt to be blackened and unsightly, and the flowers, though delicate, have a feeble and sickly look, rose white, somewhat crystalline. Its shoots or new leaves, unfolding, say when it flowered or directly after, now one inch long. 

Buck-bean just fairly begun, though probably first the 18th; a handsome flower, but already when the raceme is only half blown, some of the lowest flowers are brown and withered, deforming it. What a pity!

Juniperus repens pollen not even yet; apparently to-morrow. Apparently put back by the cold weather.

Beach plum pollen probably several days in some places; and leaves begun as long. 

Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. At first think it a tanager, but soon I perceive its more clear and instrumental — should say whistle, if one could whistle like a flute; a noble singer, reminding me also of a robin; clear, loud and flute-like; on the oaks, hill side south of Great Fields. Black all above except white on wing, with a triangular red mark on breast but, as I saw, all white beneath this. Female quite different, yellowish olivaceous above, more like a muscicapa. Song not so sweet as clear and strong. Saw it fly off and catch an insect like a flycatcher. 

An early thorn pollen (not Crus-Galli) apparently yesterday. 

Pick up a pellet in the wood-path, of a small bird’s feathers, one inch in diameter and loose; nothing else with them; some slate, some yellow. 

Young robins some time hatched. 

Hear a purple finch sing more than one minute without pause, loud and rich, on an elm over the street. Another singing very faintly on a neighboring elm. 

Conant fever-bush had not begun to leaf the 12th. 

I seem to have seen, among sedges, etc., (1) the Carex Pennsylvanica; also (2) another similar, but later and larger, in low ground with many more pistillate flowers nearly a foot high, three-sided and rough culm (the first is smooth); also (3) an early sedge at Lee’s Cliff with striped and pretty broad leaves not rigid, perhaps on 554th page of Gray; (4) the rigid tufted are common in meadows, with cut-grass-like leaves. Call it C. stricta, though not yet more than a foot high or eighteen inches. 

Of Juncacea, perhaps Luzula campestris, the early umbelled purple-leaved, low. 

And, apparently, of grasses, foxtail grass, on C. ’s bank. 

Naked azalea shoots more than a week old, and other leaves, say a week at least. 

P. M. —— To Cliffs. 

Wind suddenly changes to south this forenoon, and for first time I think of a thin coat. It is very hazy in consequence of the sudden warmth after cold, and I cannot see the mountains. 

Chinquapin pollen. Lupine not yet. Black scrub oak tassels, some reddish, some yellowish. 

Just before six, see in the northwest the first summer clouds, methinks, piled in cumuli with silvery edges, and westward of them a dull, rainy looking cloud advancing and shutting down to the horizon; later, lightning in west and south and a little rain. 

Another kind of frog spawn at Beck Stow’s.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1855

In woods the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. . . .See May 23, 1857 ("It appears striped slate and black above, white beneath, yellow-crowned with black side-head, two yellow bars on wing, white side-head below the black, black bill, and long chestnut streak on side. Its song lively . . .")

Andromeda Polifolia now in prime. . . . See May 24, 1854 ("Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime. . .A timid botanist would never pluck it.")

Just before six, see in the northwest the first summer clouds, methinks, piled in cumuli with silvery edges, and westward of them a dull, rainy looking cloud advancing and shutting down to the horizon. See May 25, 1860 "I see in the east the first summer shower cloud, a distinct cloud above, and all beneath to the horizon the general slate-color of falling rain.") and note to May 11, 1854 ("There is a low, dark, blue-black arch, crescent-like, in the horizon, sweeping the distant earth there with a dusky, rainy brush.”)

May 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 24 

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 © 2009-2021