Saturday.
Notwithstanding the very copious rain, with lightning, on the night of August 5th and the deluge which fell yesterday, raising the river still higher, it rained again and again with very vivid lightning, more copiously than ever, last night, and without long intervals all this day.
Few, if any, can remember such a succession of thunder-storms merged into one long thunder-storm, lasting almost continuously (the storm does) two nights and two days.
We are surprised to see that it can lighten just as vividly, thunder just as loud, rain just as copiously at last as at first.
P. M. — Up Assabet.
The river is raised about two feet! My boat is nearly even full, though under the willows. The water stands nearly a foot over the highest part of the large flat rock by Island. There is more current. The pads are drowned; hardly one to be seen afloat; the utmost length of their tethers does not permit them to come within a foot or ten inches of the surface. They lay smoothly on the top before, with considerable spare coil beneath; now they strain in vain toward the surface. All the Bidens Beckii is drowned too, and will be delayed, if not exterminated for this year. The water is cool to the bather after so much rain.
The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over.
Does the last always utter his twitter when ascending? These are already feeding on the thistle seeds.
Again I am surprised to see the Apocynum cannabinum close to the rock at the Island, several plants, apparently not more than ten days out; say July 25th, including the ones I saw before. The flowers of this are white, with divisions of the corolla erect or nearly so, corolla not one eighth of an inch wide, calyx-segments lanceolate, pointed, as long as the tube of the corolla. I now notice that all the branches are about equally upright, and hence the upper ones are much more upright than the upper ones of the A. andro-soemifolium. The plant is inclined to be taller and narrower than that, perhaps because it grows by water. The leaves are more oblong or lanceolate and pointed, the downiness and petioles about the same with that of the common; in this case, none heart-shaped. The one found the 5th was between this and the common, a rose-streaked one, in fact colored like the common; this, a white one with still longer calyx-segments and no heart-shaped leaves. This is rather smooth. Say, then, for that of the 5th and this, they are varieties of the A. cannabinum.
I scare up a couple of wood ducks separately, undoubtedly birds bred and dispersed about here. The rise of the river attracts them.
What I have called Aster corymbosus out a day, above Hemlocks. It has eight to twelve white rays, smaller than those of the macrophyllus, and a dull-red stem commonly. It differs from Gray's corymbosus in the achenia being apparently not slender, not opening in July, and there being no need of distinguishing it from A. macrophyllus; from his cordifolius in the rays not being numerous, nor the panicled heads very numerous (sometimes pretty numerous), and the rays not pale-blue.
Perhaps I must call it A. cordifolius, yet the lower and principal petioles are naked (Gray makes them so commonly!), not at all winged, though the upper are. Found one individual at Miles Swamp whose lower petioles were winged. Its petioles (the lower) are only sometimes winged here. The flowers of A. macrophyllus are white with a very slight bluish tinge, in a coarse flat-topped corymb. Flowers nine to ten eighths of an inch in diameter. A. cordifolius flowers six eighths of an inch diameter.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 9, 1856
Few, if any, can remember such a succession of thunder-storms. See September 6, 1854 ("There is now approaching from the west one of the heaviest thunder-showers (apparently) and with the most incessant flashes that I remember to have seen. ")
The water stands nearly a foot over the highest part of the large flat rock by Island. See March 17, 1859 ("Here is Mantatuket Rock, commonly a rocky peninsula with a low or swampy neck and all covered with wood. It is now a small rocky island, and not only the swampy neck but a considerable portion of the upland is blotted out by the flood, covered and concealed under water."); August 1, 1859 ("The west edge of the Rock above Island is eleven and a half inches above summer level. . . . Is this rise owing to the water let on from various mill-ponds this Monday morning?")
The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late. See August 18, 1860 ("The note of the wood pewee sounds prominent of late.”)
The goldfinch twittering over. . . already feeding on the thistle seeds. See August 6, 1852 (“With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc ., cease?”); August 7, 1853 (“The river is dark and smooth these days, reflecting no brightness but dark clouds, and the goldfinch is heard twittering over.”); August 10, 1854 (“The tinkling notes of goldfinches and bobolinks which we hear nowadays are of one character and peculiar to the season. They are nuts of sound, --ripened seeds of sound. . . like the sparkle on water.”); August 12, 1854 (“I see goldfinches nowadays on the lanceolate thistles, apparently after the seeds.”); August 15, 1854 (“On the top of the Hill I see the goldfinch eating the seeds of the Canada thistle. I rarely approach a bed of them or other thistles nowadays but I hear the cool twitter of the goldfinch about it.“); August 14, 1858 ("The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it."); September 4, 1860 (“The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces.”)
Again I am surprised to see theApocynum cannabinum close to the rock at the Island: . . . See August 1, 1857 ("Small Apocynum cannabinum on the rocks .") July 11, 1857 ("Apocynum cannabinum, with its small white flowers and narrow sepals . . "); August 5, 1856 ("At the Assabet stone bridge, apparently freshly in flower, . . . apparently the Apocynum cannabinum var. hypericifolium (?).”) and note to September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain, and concluded that it did not grow here. A month or two ago I read again, as many times before, that its blossoms were very small, scarcely a third as large as those of the common species, and for some unaccountable reason this distinction kept recurring to me, and I regarded the size of the flowers I saw, though I did not believe that it grew here; and in a day or two my eyes fell on it, aye, in three different places, and different varieties of it.")
Apocynum means "poisonous to dogs". All parts of the plant are poisonous and can cause cardiac arrest if ingested. The cannabinum in the scientific name and the common names Hemp Dogbane and Indian Hemp refer to its similarity to cannabis as a fiber plant. ~ Wikipedia
What I have called Aster corymbosus out a day, above Hemlocks. Perhaps I must call it A. cordifolius. See August 11, 1852 ("Aster corymbosus, path beyond Corner Spring and in Miles Swamp "); September 22, 1858 [from Salem to Cape Ann on foot] ("I had seen in this day’s walk an abundance of Aster cordifolius . . . also saw A. corymbosus, which is a handsome white wood aster"); September 6, 1856 ("For the first time distinguish the Aster cordifolius, a prevailing one in B[rattleboro] and but just beginning to flower")
Aster corymbosus and Aster cordifolius -- white and blue wood asters. Wood asters are now classified as genus Eurybia This genus’s species in New England:
Eurybia divaricata [Aster corymbosus ]
Eurybia macrophylla
Eurybia radula
Eurybia schreberi
Eurybia spectabilis
August 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 9
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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