Botanizing Lee's Cliff, Bittern Cliff and Corner Spring

July 17.

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff. 

The young leaves of the slippery elm are a yellowish green and large, and the branches recurved or drooping. 

Hypericum corymbosum. 

Am caught in the rain and take shelter under the thick white pine by Lee's Cliff. 

I see thereunder an abundance of chimaphila in bloom. It is a beautiful flower, with its naked umbel of crystalline purplish-white flowers, their disks at an angle with the horizon. On its lower side a ring of purple (or crimson) scales at the base of its concave petals, around the large, green, sticky ovary. 

The Sagina procumbens continues to flower sparingly. It agrees with Gray's plate. 

I found yesterday, at and above the Hemlocks on the Assabet, the dicksonia, apparently in prime; Aspidium Noveboracense  Aspidium marginale, apparently in prime; Osmunda Claytoniana and cinnamomea, done. 

I find to-day, at Bittern Cliff and at Lee's, Asplenium ebeneum (the larger), apparently nearly in prime, and A. Trichomanes, apparently just begun. This very commonly occurs in tufts at the base of the last, like radical leaves to it. 

Maidenhair spleenwort
September , 2018

At Lee's Cliff, Polypodium vulgare, not yet brown fruit. 

Aspidium Noveboracense at Corner Spring, not yet brown; also Aspidium Filix-foemina (?), with lunar-shaped fruit, not yet brown; also apparently a chaffy-stemmed dicksonia, densely brown-fruited; also an almost thrice pinnate fern with a very chaffy stipe, in prime, already yellowish above, somewhat A. cristatum-like, some of the dots confluent. 

Ampelopsis out of bloom at Lee's. 

Aralia racemosa, not in bloom, at Corner Spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 17, 1857


Hypericum corymbosum. See July 21, 1856 ("Hypericum corymbosum, a day or two."); July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)


The Sagina procumbens . . .agrees with Gray's plate. See Asa Gray, The Genera of the Plants of the United States


I see thereunder [Lee's Cliff] an abundance of chimaphila in bloom..See July 3, 1852 ("The Chimaphila umbellata, wintergreen, must have been in blossom some time.”); July 8, 1857 ("Chimaphila umbellata, apparently a day or two. ");   July 12, 1857 ("The Chimaphila umbellata flower-buds make a very pretty umbel, of half a dozen small purple balls surmounted by a green calyx. They contrast prettily with the glossy green leaves."); July 24, 1856 ("Chimaphila maculata, three flowers, apparently but few days, while the umbellatais quite done there. Leaves just shooting up.” ) ; November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”)

Aralia racemosa, not in bloom . . .See September 4, 1856  ("Aralia racemosa berries just ripe . . . not edible. ")