Looking for the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum berries.

July 29. 

P. M. — To Pine Hill, looking for the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum berries. 

I find plenty of bushes, but these bear very sparingly. They appear to bear but one or two years before they are overgrown. Also they probably love a cool atmosphere, for they bear annually on mountains, as Monadnock. Where the woods have been cut a year or two they have put forth fresh shoots of a livelier green. 

The V. vacillans berries are in dense clusters, raceme-like, as huckleberries are not. 

I see nowadays young martins perched on the dead tops of high trees; also young swallows on the telegraph wire. 

In the Chinese novel “ Ju-Kiao-Li, or The Two Fair Cousins,” I find in a motto to a chapter (quoted):

“He who aims at success should be continually on his guard against a thousand accidents. How many preparations are necessary before the sour plum begins to sweeten! . . . But if supreme happiness was to be attained in the space of an hour, of what use would be in life the noblest sentiments ?” (Page 227.)

Also these verses on page 230: —

“Nourished by the study of ten thousand dififerent works,
The pen in hand, one is equal to the gods.
 Let not humility take its rank amongst virtues:
Genius never yields the palm that belongs to it.” 

Again, page 22, vol. ii: — 

“If the spring did not announce its reign by the return of the leaves,
The moss, with its greenish tints, would find favor in men’s eyes.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 29, 1858 

Looking for the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum berries. See note to July 16, 1857(“I hear of the first early blueberries brought to market.”)

The V. vacillans berries are in dense clusters, raceme-like, as huckleberries are not. See July 29,, 1859 (“Vaccinium vacillans begin to be pretty thick and some huckleberries.”); July 31, 1856 (“How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill! ”)

I see nowadays young martins perched on the dead tops of high trees. See July 14, 1856 (“See and hear martins twittering on the elms by riverside.”); July 28, 1859 ("Saw young martins being fed on a bridge-rail yesterday.")

Young swallows on the telegraph wire. See July 5, 1854 ("One hundred and nine swallows on telegraph-wire at bridge within eight rods, and others flying about."); July 12, 1852 ("I observed this morning a row of several dozen swallows perched on the telegraph-wire by the bridge, and ever and anon a part of them would launch forth as with one consent, circle a few moments over the water or meadow, and return to the wire again."); July 12, 1859 (" They take their broods to the telegraph-wire for an aerial perch, where they teach them to fly.")

Note on blueberries: The difference between the often confused Huckleberry (Gaylussacia) and Lowbush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium and vacillans) is inside the berry. Huckleberries have 10 hardened seeds inside each berry, compared the numerous softer seeds in the lowbush blueberry. The plants also differ in the texture of their stems. Huckleberry stems are smooth and lowbush blueberry are "warty". The two species of Lowbush Blueberry (angustifolium and vacillans) are distinguished by their leaves. Angustifolium has leaves which are a uniform green above and below; vacillans has leaves which are noticeably more pale beneath. ` Voyageur Country

July 29. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 29

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 ©  2009-2024