At Brattleboro.
Mr. Charles C. Frost showed me a printed list of the flowers of B., furnished by him to a newspaper in B. some years since. He says he finds Aster simplex and A. ptarmicoides there (according to Oakes the latter is not found in New England out of Vermont), the latter now covered by the high water of the river; also A. concinnus, of Wood, perhaps (not in Gray) (vide specimen pressed); also Solidago patula and serotina, as well as Canadensis and gigantea.
Also finds, he says, Helianthus giganteus (Oakes gives only H. divaricatus and decapetalus to Vermont), with quite small flowers, bank of river, behind town-house; and decapetalus and strumosus.
Speaks of the fragrance of the dicksonia fern and the sensitiveness of the sensitive fern. If you take a tender plant by the stem, the warmth of your hand will cause the leaves to curl.
Thought my great dish-cover fungus a Coprolus (?) (so called from growing in dung?).
Read in Thompson's History of Vermont, which contains very good natural history, including a catalogue of the Plants of Vermont made by Oakes and, in the last edition, additional ones found by Frost.
A. M. — Walked down the railroad about a mile, returning partly by river-bank.
The depot is on the site of "Thunderbolt's" house. He was a Scotch highwayman. Called himself Dr. Wilson when here.
The prevailing polygonum in B. was a new one to me, P. Pennsylvanicum, but not roughish on the veins, apparently in prime, with the aspect of P. Persicaria, sometimes spreading and stretching four feet along a hillside, but commonly in rather low ground, roadsides.
For the first time distinguish the Aster cordifolius, a prevailing one in B. and but just beginning to flower; like an A. undulatus with narrow-winged petioles and sharp-toothed leaves; amid bushes and edges of woods, sometimes four feet high, panicled.
I see the flowering raspberry still in bloom. This plant is quite common here. The fruit, now ripe, is red and quite agreeable, but not abundant.
Desmodium Canadense still.
Maple-leaved viburnum very abundant here, a prevailing shrub. Berries apparently now in prime, or a little earlier than this, ovoid, dull blue-black.
Pluck some rose leaves by Connecticut (vide press), with now smooth, somewhat pear-shaped hips; not a sweet-briar. Also Cornus circinata berries, very light blue or bluish-white.
Cirsium discolor, roadside below depot, apparently in prime, much like lanceolatum, but smaller leaves, whitish beneath and inner scales unarmed.
Frost said that Dr. Kane left B. the morning of the day I arrived, and had given him a list of arctic plants brought home by him, which he showed me, — pages from his Report, in press.
The Solidago Canadensis very common, apparently in prime; also perfectly smooth ones with glaucous stems like some of ours. I am in doubt whether the last, or any that we have in Concord, is the S. serotina or gigantea. Frost says he distinguishes both, but Oakes does not give the S. serotina to Vermont. I should say he had but one kind, which varied from leaves rough above and on the veins beneath, and stems smooth below and pubescent above, to leaves quite smooth on both sides and stems very smooth and glaucous; rays also vary very much in size. Or are these only varieties of the Canadensis ? ?
I find small grapes a third of an inch in diameter, many ripe, on the bank of the Connecticut, — pleasantly acid. Clusters three to four or five inches long. The leaves are sharply toothed and green on both sides. Is it the Vitis cordifolia? I see also a vine with leaves rusty-downy beneath and not conspicuously toothed, with equally small now green grapes, apparently like ours. Is not this V. aestivalis? Of the latter the berries are said to be pleasant, and ripe in October.
Eupatorium ageratoides, white snake-root, in rather low ground or on banks along riverside, apparently in prime.
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| Snake-root September 6, 2020 (Mt. Pritchard) |
Apparently Helianthus decapetalus, or cut-toothed helianthus, the teeth much larger than with us.
Solidago arguta very common, apparently in prime, with sharp-toothed, more or less elliptic leaves and slender terminal drooping racemes; size of S. stricta.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 6, 1856
I see the flowering raspberry still in bloom. See September 8, 1856 ("Gathered flowering raspberries in all my walks and found them a pleasant berry, large, but never abundant") See also June 28, 1852 ("The Rubus odorata, purple flowering raspberry, in gardens.")
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