P. M. — To old mill-site behind Ponkawtasset.
The arum berries are still fresh and abundant, perhaps in their prime. A large cluster is two and a half inches long by two wide and rather flattish. One, which has ripened prematurely, the stalk being withered and drooping, resembles a very short thick ear of scarlet corn. This might well enough be called snake-corn. These singular vermilion-colored berries, about a hundred of them, surmount a purple bag on a peduncle six or eight inches long. It is one of the most remarkable and dazzling, if not the handsomest, fruits we have. These were by violet wood-sorrel wall.
Black or purplish-black
poke berries hanging around
the bright-purple stems.
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Poke berries in the sprout-land east of the red huckleberry still fresh and abundant, perhaps a little past prime. I never saw so many. The plants stand close together, and their drooping racemes three to five inches long, of black or purplish-black berries , almost crowd one another, hanging around the bright-purple, now for the most part bare, stems.
I hear some birds about, but see none feeding on the berries. I could soon gather bushels there.
How many fruits are scarlet now! — barberries, prinos, etc.
A flock of vireo-like, somewhat yellowish birds, very neat, white beneath and olive above, in garden.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1856
Poke, arum. See August 23, 1853 ("Poke stems are now ripe . . .Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn."); August 28, 1856 ("See the great oval masses of scarlet berries of the arum now in the meadows."); September 2, 1853 (" The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion.”); September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man."); September 27, 1852 ("The arum berries are now in perfection, cone-shaped spikes an inch and a half long, of scarlet or vermilion- colored, irregular, somewhat pear-shaped berries springing from a purplish core.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Arum Berries
How many fruits are scarlet now! See September 28, 1851 ("The swamp is bordered with the red-berried alder, or prinos,") See also August 22, 1852 ("Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.")
I hear some birds about, but see none feeding on the berries. I could soon gather bushels there.
How many fruits are scarlet now! — barberries, prinos, etc.
A flock of vireo-like, somewhat yellowish birds, very neat, white beneath and olive above, in garden.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1856
Poke, arum. See August 23, 1853 ("Poke stems are now ripe . . .Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn."); August 28, 1856 ("See the great oval masses of scarlet berries of the arum now in the meadows."); September 2, 1853 (" The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion.”); September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man."); September 27, 1852 ("The arum berries are now in perfection, cone-shaped spikes an inch and a half long, of scarlet or vermilion- colored, irregular, somewhat pear-shaped berries springing from a purplish core.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Arum Berries
How many fruits are scarlet now! See September 28, 1851 ("The swamp is bordered with the red-berried alder, or prinos,") See also August 22, 1852 ("Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.")
September 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 28
The arum berries
are still fresh and abundant –
perhaps in their prime.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Scarlet berry season.
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-560928
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