The yellowing year.

September 6.

September 6, 2020
(Avesong)

The willows and button-bushes have very rapidly yellowed since I noticed them August 22d.

I think it was the 25th of August that I found the lower or older leaves of the willow twigs decidedly and rapidly yellowing and decaying on a near inspection. Now the change is conspicuous at a distance.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 6, 1860


The willows and button-bushes have very rapidly yellowed. See August 22, 1860 ("Now, when the mikania is conspicuous, the bank is past prime, - for lilies are far gone  the pontederia is past prime, willows and button-bushes begin to look the worse for the wear thus early , — the lower or older leaves of the willows are turned yellow and decaying , — and many of the meadows are shorn .  The already, methinks, yellowing willows and button-bushes , the half-shorn meadows, the higher water on their edges, with wool-grass standing over it, with the notes of flitting bobolinks and red wings of this year, in rustling flocks, all tell of the fall "); September 18, 1858 ("I am struck by the soft yellow-brown or brown-yellow of the black willows, . . .It is remarkable that the button-bushes beneath and mingling with them are of exactly the same tint and in perfect harmony with them. They are like two interrupted long brown-yellow masses of verdure resting on the water, a peculiarly soft and warm yellow. This is, perhaps, the most interesting autumnal tint as yet . . .The earth is yellowing in the September sun."); September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day, warm but not too warm, a harvest day (I am going down the railroad causeway), the first unquestionable and conspicuous autumnal day, when the willows and button-bushes are a yellowed bower in parallel lines along the swollen and shining stream.");  September 20, 1859 ("I suspect that the button-bushes and black willows have been as ripe as ever they get to be"); September 24, 1854 (The button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown, all but the protected parts. . . . The button-bushes thus withered suddenly paint with a rich brown the river’s brim."); September 24, 1855 ("The button bushes pretty well browned with frost (though the maples are but just beginning to blush), their pale yellowish season past."); October 4, 1857 ("The button-bushes are generally greenish-yellow now; only the highest and most exposed points brown and crisp in some places. The black willow, rising above them, is crisped yellowish-brown, so that the general aspect of the river's brim now is a modest or sober ripe yellowish-brown"); October 8, 1858 ("The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish "); October 10, 1858 ("November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, . . . letting in the autumn light to the water") See also August 12, 1854 ("It is already the yellowing year.")