So the tree gets planted!

July 14

P. M. — To Muhlenbergii Brook. 

Anthony Wright found a lark's nest with fresh eggs on the 12th in E. Hubbard's meadow by ash tree, — two nests, probably one a second brood. 

Nasturtium hispidum (?), apparently three or four days. 

See and hear martins twittering on the elms by riverside. 

Bass out about two days at Island. 

There is a pyrus twenty feet high with small fruit at Assabet Spring. 

Noli-me-tangere already springs at Muhlenbergii Brook, some days. 

Saw apparently my little ruby(?)-crested wren(?) on the weeds there. 

Senecio long gone to seed and dispersed. 

Canada thistle some time on Huckleberry Pasture-side beyond. 

Ceratophyllum with a dense whorl of twelve little oval red-dotted apparent flower-buds (?) in an axil. 

While drinking at Assabet Spring in woods, noticed a cherry-stone on the bottom. A bird that came to drink must have brought it half a mile. So the tree gets planted!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 14, 1856

A lark's nest with fresh eggs on the 12th. See July 11, 1857 ("And now the lark must look out for the mowers."); July 16, 1851 ("The lark sings in the meadow; the very essence of the afternoon is in his strain. This is a New England sound") July 26, 1856 ("I see young larks fly pretty well before me.")

Bass out about two days at Island. See July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars"); July 18, 1854 ("We have very few bass trees in Concord, but walk near them at this season and they will be betrayed, though several rods off, by the wonderful susurrus of the bees, etc., which their flowers attract.") Compare July 3, 1853 ("There are no flowers on bass trees commonly this year."); June 3, 1857 ("The bass at the Island will not bloom this year. ") See also Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

Noli-me-tangere already springs at Muhlenbergii Brook. See August 15, 1851 ("Impatiens, noli-me-tangere, or touch-me-not, with its dangling yellow pitchers or horns of plenty, which I have seen for a month by damp causeway thickets")

Saw apparently my little ruby-crested wren on the weeds there. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren.

Senecio long gone to seed and dispersed. See  June 12, 1852 ("The meadows are yellow with golden senecio."); See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Golden Senecio

Canada thistle some time on Huckleberry Pasture-side beyond. See  July 15, 1859 ("To Ledum Swamp. First notice Canada thistle."); July 19, 1851 ("Here is the Canada thistle in bloom, visited by butterflies and bees.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Thistle and Thistle-down

Ceratophyllum [hornwort] with a dense whorl of twelve little oval red-dotted apparent flower-buds (?) in an axil. See July 27, 1856 ("Ceratophyllum is now apparently in bloom commonly, with its crimson-dotted involucre."); .July 30, 1856 ("The water is suddenly clear,. . . It assists me very much as I go looking for the ceratophyllum, potamogetons, etc. All the secrets of the river bottom are revealed. ")

While drinking at Assabet Spring. See May 2, 1855 ("Open the Assabet spring."); July 12, 1857 ("I drink at every cooler spring in my walk these afternoons."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, At Assabet Spring

A bird that came to drink must have brought it half a mile. See September 1, 1860 ("How artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it . . . The bird is bribed with the pericarp to take the stone with it and do this little service for Nature. Thus a bird's wing is added to the cherry-stone which was wingless, and it does not wait for winds to transport it."); also September 21, 1860 ("I suspect that . . . those [seeds] the wind takes are less generally the food of birds and quadrupeds than the heavier and wingless seeds") and  August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them.").

July 14.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July 14

A bird come to drink

must have brought this cherry-stone –

the tree gets planted.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, So the tree gets planted!

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 © 2009-2026

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