Viburnum nudum berries.

September 3  P. M. — To Hubbard's Swamp for Viburnum nudum berries. 

September 3

The river smooth, though full, with the autumn sheen on it, as on the leaves. 

I see painted tortoises with their entire backs covered with perfectly fresh clean black scales, such as no rubbing nor varnishing can produce, contrasting advantageously with brown and muddy ones. One little one floats past on a drifting pad which he partly sinks. 

I find one sassafras berry, dark-blue in its crimson cup, club-shaped. It is chiefly stone, and its taste is like that of tar (!), methinks, far from palatable. 

So many plants, the indigenous and the bewildering variety of exotics, you see in conservatories and nurserymen's catalogues, or read of in English books, and the Royal Society did not make one of them, and knows no more about them than you! All truly indigenous and wild on this earth. I know of no mark that betrays an introduced plant, as none but the gardener can tell what flower has strayed from its parterre; but where the seed will germinate and the plant spring and grow, there it is at home. 

Weeds are uncultivated herbaceous plants which do not bear handsome flowers. 

Polygala sanguinea is now as abundant, at least, as at any time, and perhaps more conspicuous in the meadows where I look for fringed gentian. 

Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. The berries, which are of various sizes and forms, — elliptical, oblong, or globular, — are in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. 

If gathered when rose-colored, they soon turn dark purple and are soft and edible, though before bitter. They add a new and variegated wildness to the swampy sprout-lands. Remarkable for passing through so many stages of color before they arrive at maturity. 

A singular and pleasing contrast, also, do the different kinds of viburnum and cornel berries present when compared with each other. The white berries of the panicled cornel, soon and apparently prematurely dropping from its pretty fingers, are very bitter. So also are those of the C. sericea. 

One carrion-flower berry is turning blue in its dense spherical cluster. 

Castile-soap galls are crowding the more legitimate acorn on the shrub oak.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 3, 1856

Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime . . . in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. See August  28, 1856  ("Viburnum nudum berries are beginning; I already see a few shrivelled purple ones amid the light green.");  August 31, 1856 ("The Viburnum nudum berries are now in prime, a handsome rose-purple . . and the next morning thirty were turned dark purple."); September 27,  1856 ("Viburnum nudum berries are soon gone. I noticed none to speak of in Hubbard's Swamp, September 15th.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnums

The river smooth . . . with the autumn sheen on it. See September 2, 1856 ("Clear bright days of late, with a peculiar sheen on the leaves.”)

Attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. See  September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man.. . . It behooves me to go a-berrying in this sense once a year at least. “)

Polygala sanguinea is now as abundant, at least, as at any time. See September 3, 1854 ("In the meadow southwest of Hubbard's Hill saw white Polygala sanguinea, not described.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Polygala

I find one sassafras berry, dark-blue in its crimson cup, club-shaped. . . methinks, far from palatable. See September 24, 1854 ("On the large sassafras trees on the hill I see many of the handsome red club-shaped pedicels left, with their empty cups.”)

Painted tortoises with . . . fresh clean black scales.  See August 31, 1856 ("A painted tortoise shedding its scales.”);  September 15, 1855 ("See many painted tortoise scales being shed, half erect on their backs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Castile-soap galls. September 4, 1854 (“In the wood-paths I find a great many of the Castile-soap galls, more or less fresh.”)

September 3.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  September 3

Various berries

sizes forms – elliptical

oblong, globular –

many stages of color.

Viburnum nudum.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum nudum berries

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

https://tinyurl.com/HDT-560903