The changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor.

August 14.

August 14. 

P. M. — To Flint's Pond via Saw Mill Brook. 

Aster tradescanti, apparently a day or two. 

Hypopitys, just beyond the last large (two-stemmed) chestnut at Saw Mill Brook, about done. Apparently a fungus like plant. It erects itself in seed. 

Gymnadenia nearer the brook, how long? 

Is that slender erect shrub near oak stump at Saw Mill Cornus circinate?  

Solidago odora abundantly out. 

The low wood-paths are strewn with toadstools now, and I begin to perceive their musty scent, — crowding one another by the path-side when there was not a fellow in sight.

The recent heavy rains have caused many leaves to fall, especially chestnut. They already spot the ground, rapidly yellowing and very handsomely spotted. I never weary of their colors. I see those eye-spots on the low hickory leaves also. All the Flint's Pond wood-paths are strewn with these gay-spotted chestnut leaves, and the changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor. 

Sedum Telephium, some time. Flowering blackberry still. 

A short elliptic-leaved Lespedeza violacea, loose and open in Veery Nest Path, at Flint's Pond. In press. 

On roadside heap at Emerson's, a portulaca with leaves one inch wide and seven petals (!) instead of five.

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

Gymnadenia nearer the brook, how long? See July 12, 1853 ("The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook will soon flower. ")

The low wood-paths are strewn with toadstools now . . . See August 14, 1853 ("In the low woodland paths full of rank weeds, there are countless great fungi of various forms and colors . . .”).  Compare August 14, 1854 ("The roads nowadays are covered with a light-colored, powdery dust several inches deep,”)

The changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor. See September 6, 1854 ("The sarsaparilla leaves, green or reddish, are spotted with yellow eyes centred with reddish, or dull-reddish eyes with yellow iris. They have a very pretty effect held over the forest floor . . .”)

A short elliptic-leaved Lespedeza violacea, loose and open in Veery Nest Path . See  August 4, 1856 ("Lespedeza violacea, perhaps the largest-leafed variety, . . . well out .”); August 5, 1855 ("The common small violet lespedeza out, elliptic leaved, one inch long.”); August 13, 1856 (“In Bittern Cliff Woods that (apparently) very oblong elliptical leafed Lespedeza violacea, growing very loose and open on a few long petioles, one foot high by four or five inches wide.”); August 17, 1852 ("Lespedeza violacea var. (apparently) angustifolia (?), sessiliflora of Bigelow.");