For the first time I perceive this spring
that the year is a circle.
I would make a chart of our life,
know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.
Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852
It would be pleasant to write
the history of one hillside for one year --
Blackberries, roses, and dogsbane
now in bloom here.
Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) . . .
though I did not believe that it grew here;
and in a day or two my eyes fell on it, aye,
in three different places, and different varieties of it.
I find the dog's-bane (Apocynum androsoemifolium) bark
not the nearly so strong as that of the A. cannabinum.
January 19. Gather some dry water milkweed stems to compare with the materials of the bird’s nest of the 18th . . .I strip off some bark about one sixteenth of an inch wide and six inches long and, separating ten or twelve fibres from the epidermis, roll it in my fingers, making a thread about the ordinary size. This I can not break by direct pulling, and no man could. I doubt if a thread of flax or hemp of the same size could be made so strong. What an admirable material for the Indian’s fish-line. January 19, 1856
February 9. At Cambridge to-day. Dr. Harris thinks the Indians had no real hemp but their apocynum, and, he thinks, a kind of nettle, and an asclepias, etc. February 9, 1853
April 24. See a dog’s-bane with two pods open and partially curved backward on each side, but a third not yet open. This soon opens and scatters its down and seeds in my chamber. The outside is a dull reddish or mahogany-color, but the inside is a singularly polished very pale brown. The inner bark of this makes a strong twine like that of the milkweed, but there is not so much of it. April 24, 1856
June 15. Dogsbane is just ready to open. June 15, 1852
June 21. It would be pleasant to write the history of one hillside for one year. First and last you have the colors of the rainbow and more, and the various fragrances, which it has not. Blackberries, roses, and dogsbane also are now in bloom here. June 21, 1852
June 27. The dogsbane is one of the more interesting little flowers. June 27, 1853
July 2.[Dunstable] Walked to and along the river and bathed in it. There were harebells, well out, and much Apocynum cannabinum, well out, apparently like ours, prevailing along the steep sandy and stony shore. A marked peculiarity in this species is that the upper branches rise above the flowers. Also get the A. androsoemifolium, quite downy beneath. July 2, 1858
July 3. Dogsbane and Jersey tea are among the prevailing flowers now. July 3, 1853
July 11. Apocynum cannabinum, with its small white flowers and narrow sepals half as long as whole corolla, apparently two or three days. July 11, 1857
August 1. [The East Branch] I saw at the end of this carry small Apocynum cannabinum on the rocks on the rocks, also more of the spurred gentian. August 1, 1857
August 4. Cannabis sativa. August 4, 1854
August 5. At the Assabet stone bridge, apparently freshly in flower, — though it may have been out nearly as long as the androscemifolium, — apparently the Apocynum cannabinum var. hypericifolium (?). The tallest is four feet high. The flowers very small (hardly more than an eighth of an inch in diameter), the segments of the corolla not revolute but nearly erect. There are twenty to thirty flowers at end of a branch. The divisions of the calyx are longer than in the common, long ovate. Yet it differs from Gray's hypericifolium in having flowers rose-streaked within like the common, the cymes not shorter than the leaves, and the tube of the corolla rather longer than the divisions of the calyx. The leaves are hardly more downy or heart-shaped below than the common. Hypericifolium is a separate species in Pursh and some others. And the branches are less ascending than the common, making an angle of about 62° with the stem (the four lower), while three of the lower of a common one make an angle of 44°. August 5, 1856
August 7. Hemp, perhaps a week. August 7, 1856
August 9. Again I am surprised to see the Apocynum cannabinum close to the rock at the Island, several plants, apparently not more than ten days out; say July 25th, including the ones I saw before. The flowers of this are white, with divisions of the corolla erect or nearly so, corolla not one eighth of an inch wide, calyx-segments lanceolate, pointed, as long as the tube of the corolla. I now notice that all the branches are about equally upright, and hence the upper ones are much more upright than the upper ones of the A. andro-soemifolium. The plant is inclined to be taller and narrower than that, perhaps because it grows by water. The leaves are more oblong or lanceolate and pointed, the downiness and petioles about the same with that of the common; in this case, none heart-shaped. The one found the 5th was between this and the common, a rose-streaked one, in fact colored like the common; this, a white one with still longer calyx-segments and no heart-shaped leaves. This is rather smooth. Say, then, for that of the 5th and this, they are varieties of the A. cannabinum. August 9, 1858
August 11. This side of Hubbard's Meadow Bridge . . . Cannabis sativa, apparently out. August 11, 1852
August 11. Also the small rough sunflower (now abundant) and the common apocynum (also in bloom as well as going and gone to seed) are very common. August 11, 1858
August 13. I stripped off a shred of Indian hemp bark and could not break it. It is as strong as anything of the kind I know. August 13, 1856
August 16. Hemp (Cannabis sativa), said by Gray to have been introduced; not named by Bigelow. Is it not a native? August 16, 1851
August 16. I find the dog's-bane (Apocynum androsoemifolium) bark not the nearly so strong as that of the A. cannabinum. August 16, 1856
August 16. [Minott] used to love to hear the goldfinches sing on the hemp which grew near his gate. August 16, 1858
August 21. The prevailing conspicuous flowers at present are:
- The early goldenrods,
- tansy,
- the life-everlastings,
- flea bane (though not for its flower) . . .
- prunella, and dog’s-bane (getting stale), etc., etc.
August 21. The leaves of the dogsbane are turning yellow. August 21, 1852
August 28. Hemp still in blossom. August 28, 1852
September 2. Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain, and concluded that it did not grow here. A month or two ago I read again, as many times before, that its blossoms were very small, scarcely a third as large as those of the common species, and for some unaccountable reason this distinction kept recurring to me, and I regarded the size of the flowers I saw, though I did not believe that it grew here; and in a day or two my eyes fell on it, aye, in three different places, and different varieties of it. September 2, 1856
September 4. Indian hemp out of bloom. September 4, 1856
September 26.. Dogsbane leaves a clear yellow. September 26, 1852
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Dogsbane and Indian hemp
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 © 2009-2025
***:
notes:
All parts of the Apocynum cannabinum plant are poisonous and can cause cardiac arrest if ingested. Apocynum means "poisonous to dogs". The cannabinum in the scientific name and the common names Hemp Dogbane and Indian Hemp refer to its similarity to cannabis as a fiber plant. ~ Wikipedia
Apocynum cannabinum — hemp dogbane ~ GoBotany (petals white, green-white, or yellow, not recurving at the tips, the entire flower 3-6 mm long and upright)
Apocynum androsaemifolium — spreading dogbane ~ GoBotany (petals pink or white with pink stripes, recurving at the tips, the entire flower 6-10 mm long and nodding))
