Two splendid rose-breasted grosbeaks.

May 21. 

Wednesday. P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. 

Chelidonium.

Rubus triflorus abundantly out at the Saw Mill Brook; how long? 

A robin’s nest without mud, on a young white oak in woods, with three eggs. 

Saw two splendid rose-breasted grosbeaks with females in the young wood in Emerson’s lot. What strong colored fellows, black, white, and fiery rose-red breasts! Strong-natured, too, with their stout bills. A clear, sweet singer, like a tanager but hoarse somewhat, and not shy. 

The redstarts are inquisitive and hop near. 

solomon’s seal
May 21, 2016

The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already. 

At the trough near Turnpike, near Hosmer’s Spring, the (perhaps) Stellaria borealis of the 15th. I am still in doubt whether it is a stellaria or cerastium. This is quite smooth, four to five inches high, spreading and forking,with a single flower each fork, on a long peduncle; square-stemmed, oblong—lanceolate leaves, slightly ciliate and connate: ten stamens, five long, five short. Aspect of a smooth cerastium, but this has four to seven styles, oftenest perhaps five, all apetalous, except one petal shorter than the calyx; leaves one-nerved, sepals three-nerved! The bare and small plants are reddish stemmed. Can it be Stellaria longipes? 

The buck-bean in Everett’s Pool abundantly out, say four or five days. It is earlier than at B. Stow’s.

Myosotis laxa by Turnpike, near Hosmer Spring, may have been out several days; two or three at least.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 21, 1856

The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already . . . See May 26, 1855 ("Two-leaved Solomon’s-seal pollen not long in most places.”); May 25, 1852 ("Clustered Solomon's-seal, Polygonatum pubescens ready to bloom. “);  May 13, 1855 (" The brook in Yellow Birch Swamp is very handsome now — broad and full, with the light-green hellebore eighteen inches high and the small two-leaved Solomon’s-seal about it, in the open wood.”); May 12, 1855 ("One flower of the Polygonatum pubescent open there [under Lee’s Cliff]; probably may shed pollen to-morrow.”).

A clear, sweet singer . . . May 25, 1854 ("a handsome bird with a loud and very rich song, in character between that of a robin and a red-eye”)