Sailing lightly on Bateman's Pond.

August 13. 

J. Farmer saw some days ago a black headed gull, between a kingfisher and common gull in size, sailing lightly on Bateman's Pond. It was very white beneath and bluish-white above. 

Corallorhiza multiflora and Desmodium rotundifolium, how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 13, 1857



Corallorhiza multiflora [spotted coral-root (Corallorhiza maculate) -- a saprophytic orchid]... See August 24, 1857 ("The Corallorhiza multiflora was common in these [Natick] woods, and out.")  See also Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusettscompiled by Ray Angelo ("There are about 10 references to this in Thoreau’s Journal. On August 20, 1852 he refers to Emerson finding this at Brister’s Spring on August 12, and again at Brister’s Hill on July 29, 1853. On August 1, 1854 he refers to it at Fair Haven Pond. On August 29, 1857 he finds it in the vicinity of Bateman’s Pond and names the rocky ridge where it was abundant as Corallorhiza Rocks")

Desmodium rotundifolium, how long? See August 6, 1856 (“Desmodium rotundifolium, some days at least.”); August 7, 1856 (“At Blackberry Steep . . . D. rotundifoliumis there abundant;. . . as also at Heywood Peak. All these plants seem to love a dry open hillside, a steep one.”);  August 19, 1856 (“I feel an agreeable surprise as often as I come across a new locality for desmodiums. Rarely find one kind without one or two more species near, their great spreading panicles, yet delicate, open, and airy, occupying the August air. Like raking masts with countless guys slanted far over the neighboring plants”); August 26, 1856 (“The desmodium flowers are pure purple, rose-purple in the morning when quite fresh, excepting the two green spots. The D. rotundifolium also has the two green (or in its case greenish) spots on its very large flower. . . . The round-leafed desmodium has sometimes seven pods and large flowers still fresh”)

August 13. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, August 13.

 

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 © 2009-202