The deciduous trees leafing begin to clothe or invest the evergreens.

May 22, 2015

May 22.

Cerasus pumila in full bloom. How long?
Bank swallows -- ashy-brown above -- have holes at Deep Cut. Have not surely distinguished them before, this season. 

May 23, 2015

Sage willow may have begun to leaf a week or ten days ago or more. 

Cuckoo. 

Scared up a nighthawk—from the white on wings—amid the dry leaves on the edge of a copse on Fair Haven Hill, where apparently it had been scratching, the leaves looking as if they had been turned up. 

Linaria Canadensis on Cliffs open. 

The deciduous trees leafing begin to clothe or invest the evergreens. The oaks are a little more than in the gray. 

Huckleberry open, possibly yesterday. 

Fringed polygala

Fringed polygala, how long? 

Herd’s-grass (?) on Channing’s bank, pollen. 



Lupine not open yet for two or three days. Not yet chinquapin oak.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, May 22, 1855

Deciduous trees "investing" the evergreens: See May 18, 1852 ("They are now being invested with the light, sunny, yellowish-green of the deciduous trees.")

Fringed polygala. See May 27, 1852 ("The fringed polygala near the Corner Spring is a delicate flower, with very fresh tender green leaves and red-purple blossoms; beautiful from the contrast of its clear red-purple flowers with its clear green leaves.") See also GoBotany, Polygala paucifolia (fringed milkwort, gaywings).  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Polygala

Linaria Canadensis:  A native annual or biennial that prefers highly disturbed areas with sandy soils. Its attractive light-blue to blue-violet flowers have a white throat and a nectar spur. (Nuttallanthus canadensisis, Blue Toadflax,, Canada Toadflax. Old-field Toadflax)