The Lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side.

May 30. 
P. M. — To Linnaea Wood-lot. 

The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th. 

That desert, small as it now is (for it is partly reclaimed by using pine boughs as a salve), is scored with circles (like that of Provincetown) made by the dry Polygonum articulatum blown about. It is but a lesser Sahara, and I cannot see it without being reminded that, in some parts of the globe, sand prevails like an ocean. 

What are those black masses of fibrous roots mixed with smaller dark-gray, cone-like tubers, on the sand?

Return 'via Clamshell. Yellow clover abundantly out, though the heads are small yet. Are they quite open? 

Comandra umbellata, apparently a day or two. 

Frank Harding caught five good-sized chivin this cold and windy day from the new stone bridge. The biggest one was quite red or coppery; the others but slightly, except the head. Is it a peculiarity of age?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1856

The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side . . . See May 30, 1858 ("Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d; how long?"); May 30, 1855 ("Ladies’ slipper, apparently”); May 27, 1852 ("Ladies'-slippers out. They perfume the air.”); May 26, 1857 (“A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. ”); May 20, 1852 ("A lady's-slipper well budded”); May19, 1860 (“At the Ministerial Swamp I see a white lady's-slipper almost out, fully grown, with red ones.”); May 18, 1851 ("Lady's-slipper almost fully blossomed”).

Polygonum articulate:   Coastal jointed knotweed - found on sand dunes, pine barrens, or disturbed areas with sandy soils. GoBotany

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

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