Pedestrium solatium in apricis locis. – nodosa. May 31, 1851
(“The solace of walkers in sunny places. – troublesome.”)
We cross the river
Melvin and I and his dog
to the azalea.
A swamp tends to have
an interior spot once bound
to creation's womb.
The voice of the toad
first heard a month ago sounds
differently now.
A yellowbird’s nest
of grayish milkweed fibre,
one egg, in alder.
I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora. May 31, 1853
He told me he found it about ten years ago, and he went to it every year. . , and he thought it "the handsomest flower that grows." May 31, 1853
I told him he had better tell me where it was; I was a botanist and ought to know. May 31, 1853
Cold weather. May 31, 1854
A cold southeast wind. May 31, 1854
Another windy, washing day, but warm. May 31, 1855
It has been very cold for two or three days, and to-night a frost is feared. The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day. May 31, 1856
There was a slight sea-turn, the wind coming cool and easterly this morning. May 31, 1858
The hickory leaves are blackened by blowing in the cold wind. May 31, 1856
There were severe frosts on the nights of the 28th and 29th, and now I see the hickories turned quite black, , , , Also many ferns are withered and black, May 31, 1858
Rained hard during the night. May 31, 1860
Have noticed within a week, from time to time, the water-line on the bushes along the shore — the water going down — unusually distinct, for while the exposed parts have leaved out, the lower are quite bare and black. May 31, 1856
At 6 P. M. the river has risen to half an inch below summer level, having been three to four inches below summer level yesterday morning. May 31, 1860
Small black flies or millers over river, with long feelers, flying low in swarms now. May 31, 1859
In evening hear distinctly a tree-toad. May 31, 1855
Hear the sprayey note of toads now more than ever, after the rain. May 31, 1860
Does not the voice of the toad along the river sound differently now from what it did a month ago? I think it is much less sonorous and ringing, a more croaking and inquisitive or qui vive sound. Is it not less prolonged also? May 31, 1858
In the ditches in Moore's Swamp on the new Bedford road, the myriads of pollywogs, now three quarters of an inch long, crowding close to the edge, make a continuous black edging to the pool a foot wide. May 31, 1857
That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp is its very navel, omphalos, where the umbilical cord was cut that bound it to creation's womb. Methinks every swamp tends to have or suggests such an interior tender spot. May 31, 1857
There grow the white spruce and the larch.. May 31, 1857
Rhodora now in its prime. May 31, 1857
Andromeda Polifolia, much past its prime. May 31, 1857
I detect no hairy huckleberry. May 31, 1857
The Vaccinium Oxycoccus is almost in bloom! and has grown three inches; is much in advance of the common. May 31, 1857
The Pinus resinosa not yet out; will be apparently with the rigida. The sterile flower-buds are dark-purple, while those of the rigida there are light-green. May 31, 1857
I see in open land a hollow circle of Lycopodium dendroideum, ten feet in diameter. This too, then, like the flowering fern, grows or spreads in circles. May 31, 1857
Also the cinnamon fern grows in circles. May 31, 1857
Hemlock and creeping juniper, where had not bloomed the 22d, are now entirely out of bloom on the hill. How short their flower lasts! May 31, 1856
Ranunculus Purshii, probably earlier in some places, but water high. May 31, 1856
Nuphar advena first noticed; may have been out some time in some places, but just out in river. May 31, 1856
That little cerastium on the rock at the Island, noticed the 22d, which probably opened about that time, is now out of bloom. May 31, 1856
The red oak is so forward, compared with the rest, that it is more difficult to get a sprig in flower small enough (its leaves) to press. May 31, 1856
Blue-eyed grass, apparently in pretty good season. May 31, 1854
Choke-cherry, a day or two. May 31, 1858
Cornus florida, not yet for two or three days. May 31, 1858
I saw on the 29th white Viola pedata, and to-day a white V. cucullata. May 31, 1858
Clintonia. May 31, 1856
Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days. May 31, 1856
See an ants' nest, just begun, which covers the grass with sand for more than ten feet in one direction and seven in the other and is thickly pierced with holes. May 31, 1857
I see, running along on the flat side of a railroad rail on the causeway, a wild mouse with an exceedingly long tail. Perhaps it would be called the long-tailed meadow mouse. May 31, 1858
At 5 P.M., go to see a gray squirrel's nest in the oak at the Island point. It is about fifteen feet from the ground, – the entrance, — where a limb has been broken off, and the tree is hollow above and below. One young one darted past downward under my face, with the speed of a bird. May 31, 1858
I find a chewink's nest with four eggs (fresh) on the side-hill at Jarvis’s wood-lot, twenty feet below wood-chuck’s hole at canoe birch. The nest is first of withered leaves, then stubble, thickly lined with withered grass and partly sheltered by dead leaves, shoved [?] up a huckleberry bush. May 31, 1858
See a yellowbird building a nest on a white oak on the Island. She goes to a fern for the wool. May 31, 1855
A yellowbird’s nest of that grayish milkweed fibre, one egg, in alder by wall west of Indian burying(?)-ground. May 31, 1858
A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea.), with six of those oblong narrow gray eggs speckled with much brown at end. May 31, 1856
See a greater telltale. . . at the water's edge. It keeps nodding its head with an awkward jerk, and wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. May 31,
As I return in the dusk, many nighthawks, with their great spotted wings, are circling low over the river, as the swallows were when I went out. May 31, 1856
Some incidents in my life have seemed far more allegorical than actual; they were so significant that they plainly served no other use.May 31, 1853
That a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw, perhaps never heard of, for which therefore there was no place in our thoughts may be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive. May 31, 1853
We went on down the brook, - Melvin and I and his dog, - and crossed the river in his boat, and he conducted me to where the Azalea nudiflora grew, 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.. May 31, 1853
The boundaries of the actual are no more fixed and rigid than the elasticity of our imaginations. May 31, 1853
In evening hear distinctly a tree-toad. See; May 23, 1857 ("I hear one regular bullfrog trump, and as I approach the edge of the Holden Swamp, the tree-toads."); May 27, 1852 ("Methinks the tree-toad croaks more this wet weather."); May 28, 1853 (" What is peculiar now, beginning yesterday, after rains, is the sudden heat, and the more general sound of insects by day, and the loud ringing croak of common toads and tree-toads at evening and in the night."); June 9, 1854 ("The veery rings, and the tree-toad. ")
He thought it "the handsomest flower that grows." .... Azalea nudiflora,-- purple azalea, pinxter-flower . See May 17, 1854 ("Azalea nudiflora in woods begins to leaf now.");May 29, 1855 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden"); June 2, 1855 ("The Azalea nudiflora now in its prime.”); May 25, 1856 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden"); June 2, 1856 ("To Azalea nudiflora, which is in prime.");; May 26, 1857 ("Pink azalea in garden"); May 24, 1858 ("The pink azalea, too, not yet out at home, is generally out[ in New York)”); May 19, 1859 (“Our Azalea nudiflora flowers.”); May 27, 1859 (“Azalea nudiflora blooms generally.”); May 26, 1860 ("Our pink azalea”)
Millers over river, with long feelers, flying low. See June 6, 1855 (“There are now those large swarms of black-winged millers a half-inch long, with two long streamers ahead, fluttering three to six inches over the water”)
That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp . See August 23, 1854 ("There is in the middle an open pool, twenty or thirty feet in diameter,. . .an abrupt edge next the water, this on a dense bed of quaking sphagnum, in which I sink eighteen inches in water, upheld by its matted roots, where I fear to break through. On this the spatulate sundew abounds."); August 30, 1856 ("Consider how remote and novel that swamp. Beneath it is a quaking bed of sphagnum, and in it grow Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, menyanthes (or buck -bean), Gaylussacia dumosa, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, — plants which scarcely a citizen of Concord ever sees.")
Andromeda Polifolia, much past its prime. See May 24, 1855 ("Andromeda Polifolia now in prime."); May 24, 1854 ("Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime. . .A timid botanist would never pluck it."); February 17, 1854 ("In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore."). Note HDT first discovered Andromeda Polifolia on July 14, 1853 at Beck Stow’s Swamp (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. “) On February 17, 1854 he first records finding it at Gowing’s Swamp.. See Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts
The hickory leaves are blackened by blowing in the cold wind. May 31, 1856
There were severe frosts on the nights of the 28th and 29th, and now I see the hickories turned quite black, , , , Also many ferns are withered and black, May 31, 1858
Rained hard during the night. May 31, 1860
Have noticed within a week, from time to time, the water-line on the bushes along the shore — the water going down — unusually distinct, for while the exposed parts have leaved out, the lower are quite bare and black. May 31, 1856
At 6 P. M. the river has risen to half an inch below summer level, having been three to four inches below summer level yesterday morning. May 31, 1860
Small black flies or millers over river, with long feelers, flying low in swarms now. May 31, 1859
In evening hear distinctly a tree-toad. May 31, 1855
Hear the sprayey note of toads now more than ever, after the rain. May 31, 1860
Does not the voice of the toad along the river sound differently now from what it did a month ago? I think it is much less sonorous and ringing, a more croaking and inquisitive or qui vive sound. Is it not less prolonged also? May 31, 1858
In the ditches in Moore's Swamp on the new Bedford road, the myriads of pollywogs, now three quarters of an inch long, crowding close to the edge, make a continuous black edging to the pool a foot wide. May 31, 1857
That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp is its very navel, omphalos, where the umbilical cord was cut that bound it to creation's womb. Methinks every swamp tends to have or suggests such an interior tender spot. May 31, 1857
There grow the white spruce and the larch.. May 31, 1857
Rhodora now in its prime. May 31, 1857
Andromeda Polifolia, much past its prime. May 31, 1857
I detect no hairy huckleberry. May 31, 1857
The Vaccinium Oxycoccus is almost in bloom! and has grown three inches; is much in advance of the common. May 31, 1857
The Pinus resinosa not yet out; will be apparently with the rigida. The sterile flower-buds are dark-purple, while those of the rigida there are light-green. May 31, 1857
I see in open land a hollow circle of Lycopodium dendroideum, ten feet in diameter. This too, then, like the flowering fern, grows or spreads in circles. May 31, 1857
Also the cinnamon fern grows in circles. May 31, 1857
Hemlock and creeping juniper, where had not bloomed the 22d, are now entirely out of bloom on the hill. How short their flower lasts! May 31, 1856
Ranunculus Purshii, probably earlier in some places, but water high. May 31, 1856
Nuphar advena first noticed; may have been out some time in some places, but just out in river. May 31, 1856
That little cerastium on the rock at the Island, noticed the 22d, which probably opened about that time, is now out of bloom. May 31, 1856
The red oak is so forward, compared with the rest, that it is more difficult to get a sprig in flower small enough (its leaves) to press. May 31, 1856
Blue-eyed grass, apparently in pretty good season. May 31, 1854
Choke-cherry, a day or two. May 31, 1858
Cornus florida, not yet for two or three days. May 31, 1858
I saw on the 29th white Viola pedata, and to-day a white V. cucullata. May 31, 1858
Clintonia. May 31, 1856
Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days. May 31, 1856
See an ants' nest, just begun, which covers the grass with sand for more than ten feet in one direction and seven in the other and is thickly pierced with holes. May 31, 1857
I see, running along on the flat side of a railroad rail on the causeway, a wild mouse with an exceedingly long tail. Perhaps it would be called the long-tailed meadow mouse. May 31, 1858
At 5 P.M., go to see a gray squirrel's nest in the oak at the Island point. It is about fifteen feet from the ground, – the entrance, — where a limb has been broken off, and the tree is hollow above and below. One young one darted past downward under my face, with the speed of a bird. May 31, 1858
I find a chewink's nest with four eggs (fresh) on the side-hill at Jarvis’s wood-lot, twenty feet below wood-chuck’s hole at canoe birch. The nest is first of withered leaves, then stubble, thickly lined with withered grass and partly sheltered by dead leaves, shoved [?] up a huckleberry bush. May 31, 1858
See a yellowbird building a nest on a white oak on the Island. She goes to a fern for the wool. May 31, 1855
A yellowbird’s nest of that grayish milkweed fibre, one egg, in alder by wall west of Indian burying(?)-ground. May 31, 1858
A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea.), with six of those oblong narrow gray eggs speckled with much brown at end. May 31, 1856
See a greater telltale. . . at the water's edge. It keeps nodding its head with an awkward jerk, and wades in the water to the middle of its yellow legs; goes off with a loud and sharp phe phe phe phe. May 31,
As I return in the dusk, many nighthawks, with their great spotted wings, are circling low over the river, as the swallows were when I went out. May 31, 1856
Some incidents in my life have seemed far more allegorical than actual; they were so significant that they plainly served no other use.May 31, 1853
That a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw, perhaps never heard of, for which therefore there was no place in our thoughts may be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive. May 31, 1853
We went on down the brook, - Melvin and I and his dog, - and crossed the river in his boat, and he conducted me to where the Azalea nudiflora grew, 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.. May 31, 1853
The boundaries of the actual are no more fixed and rigid than the elasticity of our imaginations. May 31, 1853
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree-toad
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Summer Yellowbird
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Birds of May
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory
*****
Hear the sprayey note of toads now more than ever, after the rain. not the voice of the toad along the river sound differently now from what it did a month ago? See May 13, 1860 ("It is so warm that I hear the peculiar sprayey note of the toad generally at night."); May 16, 1853 ("Nature’appears to have passed a crisis. . . . The sprayey dream of the toad has a new sound."); May 19, 1854 ("I hear the sprayey-note frog now at sunset.");May 25, 1851 (“I hear the dreaming of the frogs); May 25, 1859 ("Hear within a day or two what I call the sprayey note of the toad, different and later than its early ring."); June 12, 1855 (“I hear the toad, which I have called “spray frog” falsely, still. . . .A peculiarly rich, sprayey dreamer, now at 2 P. M.! . . . This rich, sprayey note possesses all the shore. It diffuses itself far and wide over the water and enters into every crevice of the noon, and you cannot tell whence it proceeds”)
A yellowbird building a nest on a white oak on the Island. She goes to a fern for the wool. A yellowbird’s nest of that grayish milkweed fibre. See January 19, 1856 ("Knocked down the bottom of that summer yellow bird’s nest made on the oak at the Island last summer. It is chiefly of fern wool and also, apparently, some sheep’s wool (?), with a fine green moss (apparently that which grows on button-bushes) inmixed, and some milkweed fibre, and all very firmly agglutinated together.") See also June 5, 1859 ("A yellowbird's nest; four eggs, developed."); June 7, 1855 ("A yellowbird’s nest on a willow bough against a twig, ten feet high, four eggs"); June 9, 1856 ("A yellowbird’s nest in a poplar on Hubbard’s Bridge causeway; four fresh eggs; ten feet high, three rods beyond fence."); June 9, 1855 ("A yellowbird’s nest eight feet from ground in crotch of a very slender maple.“)
He thought it "the handsomest flower that grows." .... Azalea nudiflora,-- purple azalea, pinxter-flower . See May 17, 1854 ("Azalea nudiflora in woods begins to leaf now.");May 29, 1855 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden"); June 2, 1855 ("The Azalea nudiflora now in its prime.”); May 25, 1856 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden"); June 2, 1856 ("To Azalea nudiflora, which is in prime.");; May 26, 1857 ("Pink azalea in garden"); May 24, 1858 ("The pink azalea, too, not yet out at home, is generally out[ in New York)”); May 19, 1859 (“Our Azalea nudiflora flowers.”); May 27, 1859 (“Azalea nudiflora blooms generally.”); May 26, 1860 ("Our pink azalea”)
That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp . See August 23, 1854 ("There is in the middle an open pool, twenty or thirty feet in diameter,. . .an abrupt edge next the water, this on a dense bed of quaking sphagnum, in which I sink eighteen inches in water, upheld by its matted roots, where I fear to break through. On this the spatulate sundew abounds."); August 30, 1856 ("Consider how remote and novel that swamp. Beneath it is a quaking bed of sphagnum, and in it grow Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, menyanthes (or buck -bean), Gaylussacia dumosa, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, — plants which scarcely a citizen of Concord ever sees.")
Andromeda Polifolia, much past its prime. See May 24, 1855 ("Andromeda Polifolia now in prime."); May 24, 1854 ("Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime. . .A timid botanist would never pluck it."); February 17, 1854 ("In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore."). Note HDT first discovered Andromeda Polifolia on July 14, 1853 at Beck Stow’s Swamp (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. “) On February 17, 1854 he first records finding it at Gowing’s Swamp.. See Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 31
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
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