Greenness at the end of the year, after the fall of the leaf.

 

October 31

Cloudy still and, in the afternoon, rain, the ninth day.

The sugar maple and elm leaves are fallen, but I still see many large oaks, especially scarlet ones, which have lost very few leaves. Some scarlet oaks are pretty bright yet.

The white birches, too, still retain many yellow leaves at their very tops, having a lively flame-like look when seen against the woods.

                                                  ***

Aspidium spinulosum

In the Lee farm swamp, by the old Sam Barrett mill site, I see two kinds of ferns still green and much in fruit, apparently the Aspidium spinulosum (?) and cristatum (?).

They are also common in other swamps now. They are quite fresh in those cold and wet places and almost flattened down now. The atmosphere of the house is less congenial to them.

In the summer you might not have noticed them. Now they are conspicuous amid the withered leaves.

You are inclined to approach and raise each frond in succession, moist, trembling, fragile greenness. They linger thus in all moist clammy swamps under the bare maples and grape-vines and witch-hazels, and about each trickling spring which is half choked with fallen leaves.

What means this persistent vitality, invulnerable to frost and wet? Why were these spared when the brakes and osmundas were stricken down? They stay as if to keep up the spirits of the cold-blooded frogs which have not yet gone into the mud; that the summer may die with decent and graceful moderation, gradually,

Is not the water of the spring improved by their presence ? They fall back and droop here and there, like the plumes of departing summer, — of the departing year,

Even in them I feel an argument for immortality. Death is so far from being universal.  The same destroyer does not destroy all,

How valuable they are (with the lycopodiums) for cheerfulness.  Greenness at the end of the year, after the fall of the leaf, as in a hale old age.

To my eyes they are tall and noble as palm groves, and always some forest noble-ness seems to have its haunt under their umbrage. Each such green tuft of ferns is a grove where some nobility dwells and walks.

All that was immortal in the swamp's herbage seems here crowded into smaller compass, the concentrated greenness of the swamp. 

How dear they must be to the chickadee and the rabbit! The cool, slowly retreating rear-guard of the swamp army.

What virtue is theirs that enables them to resist the frost?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 31, 1857

Some scarlet oaks are pretty bright yet. See October 31, 1858 ("The woods in Lincoln south and east of me are lit up by its more level rays, and there is brought out a more brilliant redness in the scarlet oaks, scattered so equally over the forest, than you would have believed was in them. Every tree of this species which is visible in these directions, even to the horizon, now stands out distinctly red") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Scarlet Oak

The white birches, too, still retain many yellow leaves at their very tops, having a lively flame-like look when seen against the woods. See October 22, 1855 ("I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines,"); October 22, 1858 (" The birches are now but thinly clad and that at top, its flame shaped top more like flames than ever now. . . . The lowermost leaves turn golden and fall first; so their autumn change is like a fire which has steadily burned up higher and higher, consuming the fuel below, till now it has nearly reached their tops.")

The Aspidium spinulosum and cristatum. See October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum, which I had not identified. Apparently Aspidium cristatum elsewhere . . . The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum

A Book of the Seasons: The Evergreen Ferns, Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum

 [Asplenium spinulosum (spinulose woodfern) 

& Asplenium cristatum  (crested woodfern)]

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

I see two kinds of ferns still green and much in fruit,

apparently the Aspidium spinulosum (?) and cristatum (?) . . .

What virtue is theirs that enables them to resist the frost? 

October 31, 1857

Almost every plant, however humble, has thus its day,

and sooner or later becomes the characteristic feature

of some part of the landscape or other.

September 10, 1860

Aspidium spinulosum

September 30. Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens September 30, 1859 

October 15. That appears to be Aspidium cristatum which I find evergreen in swamps, but no fertile fronds now . . .  It cannot be a described variety of spinulosum, for it is only once pinnate.  October 15, 1859

October 23. The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum, which I had not identified. Apparently Aspidium cristatum elsewhere . . . The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears. October 23, 1857 

October 28. I now begin to notice the evergreen ferns, when the others are all withered or fallen. October 28, 1858

October 31.  In the Lee farm swamp, by the old Sam Barrett mill site, I see two kinds of ferns still green and much in fruit, apparently the Aspidium spinulosum (?) and cristatum (?). They are also common in other swamps now.

They are quite fresh in those cold and wet places and almost flattened down now. The atmosphere of the house is less congenial to them. In the summer you might not have noticed them. Now they are conspicuous amid the withered leaves. 

You are inclined to approach and raise each frond in succession, moist, trembling, fragile greenness. They linger thus in all moist clammy swamps under the bare maples and grape-vines and witch-hazels, and about each trickling spring which is half choked with fallen leaves. 

What means this persistent vitality, invulnerable to frost and wet? Why were these spared when the brakes and osmundas were stricken down? They stay as if to keep up the spirits of the cold-blooded frogs which have not yet gone into the mud; that the summer may die with decent and graceful moderation, gradually.

 Is not the water of the spring improved by their presence? They fall back and droop here and there, like the plumes of departing summer, — of the departing year.

 Even in them I feel an argument for immortality. Death is so far from being universal. The same destroyer does not destroy all. How valuable they are (with the lycopodiums) for cheerfulness. Greenness at the end of the year, after the fall of the leaf, as in a hale old age. 

To my eyes they are tall and noble as palm groves, and always some forest noble-ness seems to have its haunt under their umbrage. Each such green tuft of ferns is a grove where some nobility dwells and walks. All that was immortal in the swamp's herbage seems here crowded into smaller compass, the concentrated greenness of the swamp. 

How dear they must be to the chickadee and the rabbit! The cool, slowly retreating rearguard of the swamp army. 

What virtue is theirs that enables them to resist the frost?  October 31, 1857

November 15.  To Grackle Swamp.  A very fine snow falling, just enough to whiten the bare spots a little. I go to look for evergreen ferns before they are covered up. The end of last month and the first part of this is the time. I do not know that I find more than one kind now in that swamp, and of that the fertile fronds are mostly decayed. All lie flat, ready to be buried in snow . . . Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November; also the . . . evergreen ferns. November 15, 1858 

November 17. As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —Common polypody (though shrivelled by cold where exposed). Asplenium trichomanes. A. ebeneum. Aspidium spinulosum (?) large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th. A. cristatum (?), Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond. A. marginale (common). A. achrostichoides (terminal shield).  The first one and the last two are particularly handsome, the last especially, it has so thick a frond. November 17, 1858 

See also 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort;

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Evergreen Ferns Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Sheild Fern

Evergreen wood ferns –

plumes of departing summer,

the departing year.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum  & Aspidium cristatum

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-woodferns

The evergreen ferns by contrast are greener than ever

September 30

Deer Leap September 30, 2019

P. M. — Up Assabet.

Ever since the unusually early and severe frost of the 16th, the evergreen ferns have been growing more and more distinct amid the fading and decaying and withering ones, and the sight of those suggests a cooler season. They are greener than ever, by contrast. 

The terminal shield fern is one of the handsomest. The most decidedly evergreen are the last, polypody, Aspidium marginale, and Aspidium spinulosum of Woodis Swamp and Brister's. 

Asplenium Filix foemina (?) is decaying, maybe a little later than the dicksonia, — the largish fern with long, narrow pinnules deeply cut and toothed, and reniform fruit-dots. 

Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens. 

As far as I know, the earliest to wither and fall are 

• the brake (mostly fallen), 
• the Osmunda cinnamomea (begun to be stripped of leaves), 
• 0. Claytoniana, 
• and 0. regalis (the above four generally a long time withered, or say since the 20th); 
• also (5th), as soon, the exposed onoclea; 
• then (6th) the dicksonia, 
• (7th) Aspidium Noveboracense, 
• (8th) Thelypteris, 
• (9th) Filix-foemina (the last four now fully half faded or decayed or withered). 

Those not seen are Adiantum pedatum, Woodwardia Virginica, Asplenium thelypteroides, Woodsia Ilvensis, Aspidium cristatum, Lygodium palmatum, Botrychium Virginicum. 

Some acorns (swamp white oak) are browned on the trees, and some bass berries. Most shrub oak acorns browned. 

The wild rice is almost entirely fallen or eaten, apparently by some insect, but I see some green and also black grains left.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 30, 1859

The evergreen ferns have been growing more and more distinct amid the fading and decaying and withering ones. The terminal shield fern is one of the handsomest. See September 25, 1859 ("The terminal shield fern and the Aspidium spinulosum (?) are still fresh and green, the first as much so as the polypody."); October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum, which I had not identified. . . .The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”); October 28, 1858 ("I now begin to notice the evergreen ferns, when the others are all withered or fallen."); October 29, 1858 (“Evergreen ferns, suddenly emerge as from obscurity . . . how much they require this brown and withered carpet to be spread under them for effect. Now, too, the light is let in to show them.”); October 31, 1857 (“I see two kinds of ferns still green and much in fruit, apparently the Aspidium spinulosum (?) and cristatum (?) . . . In the summer you might not have noticed them. Now they are conspicuous amid the withered leaves.”); November 5, 1857 ("The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green.")

Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens. See November 17, 1858 ("As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —

• Common polypody (though shrivelled by cold where exposed).
• Asplenium trichomanes.
• A. ebeneum.
• Aspidium spinulosum (?). large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th.
• A. cristatum (?), Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond.
• A. marginale (common).
• A. achrostichoides (terminal shield).

The first one and the last two are particularly handsome, the last especially, it has so thick a frond.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum  & Aspidium cristatum;  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern

The wild rice is almost entirely fallen or eaten, but I see some green and also black grains left. See September 15, 1859 ("The grain of the wild rice is all green yet."); September 24, 1852 ("The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long.")

Some acorns (swamp white oak) are browned on the trees, and some bass berries. Most shrub oak acorns browned.  See September 30, 1854 ("Acorns are generally now turned brown and fallen or falling; the ground is strewn with them and in paths they are crushed by feet and wheels. The white oak ones are dark and the most glossy.") See also September 13, 1859 ("I see some shrub oak acorns turned dark on the bushes and showing their meridian lines, but generally acorns of all kinds are green yet. "); September 21, 1859 ("Acorns have been falling very sparingly ever since September 1, but are mostly wormy. They are as interesting now on the shrub oak (green) as ever."); September 26, 1854 ("Many swamp white oak acorns have turned brown on the trees."); September 28, 1858 ("The small shrub oak . . . with its pretty acorns striped dark and light alternately."); September 29, 1854 ("Bass berries dry and brown"); October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit. The . . . pretty fruit, varying in size, pointedness, and downiness, being now generally turned brown, with light, converging meridional lines . . . Now is the time for shrub oak acorns.")

Evergreen ferns by 

contrast greener than ever

since the severe frost.

Holding a white pine needle in my hand.

September 25. 

September 25, 2019

P. M. — To Emerson's Cliff. 

Holding a white pine needle in my hand, and turning it in a favorable light, as I sit upon this cliff, I perceive that each of its three edges is notched or serrated with minute forward-pointing bristles. 

So much does Nature avoid an unbroken line that even this slender leaf is serrated; though, to my surprise, neither Gray nor Bigelow mention it. Loudon, however, says, "Scabrous and inconspicuously serrated on the margin; spreading in summer, but in winter contracted, and lying close to the branches." 

Fine and smooth as it looks, it is serrated after all. This is its concealed wildness, by which it connects itself with the wilder oaks. 

Prinos berries are fairly ripe for a few days. 

Moles work in meadows.  

I see at Brister Spring Swamp the (apparently) Aspidium Noveboracense, more than half of it turned white. Also some dicksonia is about equally white. These especially are the white ones. There is another, largish, and more generally decayed than either of these, with large serrated segments, rather far apart, — perhaps the Asplenium Filix-foemina (?). The first may be called now the white fern, — with rather small entirish and flat segments close together. 

In shade is the laboratory of white. Color is produced in the sun. 

The cinnamon ferns are all a decaying brown there. The sober brown colors of those ferns are in harmony with the twilight of the swamp. 

The terminal shield fern and the Aspidium spinulosum (?) are still fresh and green, the first as much so as the polypody. 

At 2 p. m. the river is sixteen and three quarters inches above my hub[?] by boat. 

Nabalus albus still common, though much past prime. Though concealed amid trees, I find three humble-bees on one. As when Antaeus touched the earth, so when the mountaineer scents the fern, he bounds up like a chamois, or mountain goat, with renewed strength. There is no French perfumery about it. It has not been tampered with by any perfumer to their majesties. It is the fragrance of those plants whose impressions we see on our coal. Beware of the cultivation that eradicates it. 

The very crab-grass in our garden is for the most part a light straw-color and withered, probably by the frosts of the 15th and 16th, looking almost as white as the corn; and hundreds of sparrows (chip-birds ?) find their food amid it. The same frosts that kill and whiten the corn whiten many grasses thus.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1859

I see at Brister Spring Swamp the (apparently) Aspidium Noveboracense, more than half of it turned white. Also some dicksonia...perhaps the Asplenium Filix-foemina. See July 17, 1857 ("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")

The sober brown colors of those ferns are in harmony with the twilight of the swamp. See note to September 24, 1859 ("The tufts of cinnamon fern, now a pale brown.") See also 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

The terminal shield fern and the Aspidium spinulosum (?) are still fresh and green, the first as much so as the polypody. See September 30, 1859 ("The terminal shield fern is one of the handsomest. The most decidedly evergreen are the last, polypody, Aspidium marginale, and Aspidium spinulosum of Woodis Swamp and Brister's . . . Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens."); October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum.. . .The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”); November 17, 1858 ("As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —

• Common polypody (though shrivelled by cold where exposed).
• Asplenium trichomanes.
• A. ebeneum.
• Aspidium spinulosum (?). large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th.
• A. cristatum (?), Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond.
• A. marginale (common).
• A. achrostichoides (terminal shield).

The first one and the last two are particularly handsome, the last especially, it has so thick a frond.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern andA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum

The evergreen ferns stand out all at once.

October 23

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Aspidium spinulosum

The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum, which I had not identified. Apparently Aspidium cristatum elsewhere.

I can find no bright leaves now in the woods. 

Witch hazel, etc., are withered, turned brown, or yet green. 

See by the droppings in the woods where small migrating birds have roosted. 

I see a squirrel's nest in a white pine, recently made, on the hillside near the witch-hazels. 

The high bank-side is mostly covered with fallen leaves of pines and hemlocks, etc. 

Marginal Woodfern

Mt. Pritchard, October 23, 2024

The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears. 

The fallen pine-needles, as well as other leaves, now actually paint the surface of the earth brown in the woods, covering the green and other colors, and the few evergreen plants on the forest floor stand out distinct and have a rare preeminence. 

Sal Cummings, a thorough countrywoman, conversant with nuts and berries, calls the soapwort gentian “blue vengeance,” mistaking the word. A masculine wild eyed woman of the fields. Somebody has her daguerreotype. When Mr. — was to lecture on Kansas, she was sure “she wa'n't going to hear him. None of her folks had ever had any.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 23, 1857

Aspidium spinulosum, which I had not identified. See October 31, 1857 ("In the Lee farm swamp, by the old Sam Barrett mill site, I see two kinds of ferns still green and much in fruit, apparently the Aspidium spinulosum (?) and cristatum (?). They are also common in other swamps now. They are quite fresh in those cold and wet places and almost flattened down now . . . In the summer you might not have noticed them. Now they are conspicuous amid the withered leaves."); November 17, 1858 ("Aspidium spinulosum (?), large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister's Spring, on 16th"); September 25, 1859 ("The terminal shield fern and the Aspidium spinulosum (?) are still fresh and green, the first as much so as the polypody."); September 30, 1859 ("The most decidedly evergreen are the [terminal shield fern ], polypody, Aspidium marginale, and Aspidium spinulosum of Woodis Swamp and Brister's."); May 18, 1860 ("That large fern (is it Aspidium spinulosum? ) of Brister Spring Swamp is a foot or more high. It is partly evergreen.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum

The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum, which I had not identified. Apparently Aspidium cristatum elsewhere. See September 30, 1859 ("Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens."); November 17, 1858 ("As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —

• Common polypody  [Polypodium virginianum — rock polypody] (though shrivelled by cold where exposed)
• Asplenium trichomanes [maidenhair spleenwort].
• A. ebeneum [or Asplenium platyneuron – ebony spleenwort or brownstem spleenwort].
• Aspidium spinulosum (?) [or Dryopteris carthusiana or Polypodium spinulosum, –  spinulose shield fern, spinulose woodfern or toothed wood fern] large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th.
• A. cristatum (?) [or Dryopteris cristata – crested wood fern], Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond.
• A. marginale (common) [or Dryopteris marginalis, – marginal shield fern or marginal wood fern]
• A. achrostichoides (terminal shield) [or Polystichum acrostichoides, – Christmas fern].")

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum  & Aspidium cristatum;  

I begin now to

notice the evergreen ferns –

when others wither.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern

Sal Cummings, a thorough countrywoman, conversant with nuts and berries' See October 5, 1856 ("Sally Cummings and Mike Murray are out on the Hill collecting apples and nuts. Do they not rather belong to such children of nature than to those who have merely bought them with their money?")

October 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 23

The evergreen ferns 

are seen to be evergreen – 

stand out all at once. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  evergreen ferns stand out all at once.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-571023

At the cleft rock by the hill just west of this swamp.

September 4.
P. M. – To Bateman’s Pond. 

Rudbeckia laciniata (?) by Dodge's Brook, north of the road; how long? 

Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen. 

The leaves of the light-colored spruce in the spruce swamp are erect like the white! 

Penetrating through the thicket of that swamp, I see a great many very straight and slender upright shoots, the slenderest and tallest that I ever saw. They are the Prinos laevigatus. I cut one and brought it home in a ring around my neck, — it was flexible enough for that, — and found it to be seven and a half feet long and quite straight, eleven fortieths of an inch in diameter at the ground and three fortieths  diameter at the other end, only the last foot or so of this year's growth. It had a light-grayish bark, rough dotted. Generally they were five or six feet high and not bigger than a pipe-stem anywhere. This comes of its growing in dense dark swamps, where it makes a good part of the underwood. 

At the cleft rock by the hill just west of this swamp, — call it Cornel Rock, – I found apparently Aspidium cristatum (?), q. v. 

That is an interesting spot. There is the handsomest and most perfect Cornus circinata there that I know, now apparently its fruit in prime, hardly light-blue but delicate bluish-white. It is the richest-looking of the cornels, with its large round leaf and showy cymes; a slender bush seven or eight feet high. 

There is quite a collection of rare plants there, – petty morel, Thalictrum dioicum, witch hazel, etc., Rhus radicans, maple-leaved viburnum, polypody, Polygonum dumetorum, anychia. There was a strawberry vine falling over the perpendicular face of the rock, - or more than perpendicular, — which hung down dangling in the air five feet, not yet reaching the bottom, with leaves at intervals of fifteen inches. Various rocks scattered about in these woods rising just to the surface with smooth rounded surfaces, showing a fine stratification on its edges. 

The sides of Cornus florida Ravine at Bateman’s Pond are a good place for ferns. There is a Woodsia Ilvensis, a new one to Concord. Petty morel in the ravine, and large cardinal-flowers. 

I see prenanthes radical leaf turned pale-yellow. Arum berries ripe. 

Already, long before sunset, I feel the dew falling in that cold calla swamp.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1857

Rudbeckia laciniata (?) by Dodge's Brook, north of the road. . . See July 30, 1856 (“Rudbeckia laciniata, perhaps a week.”); August 18, 1852 (“Rudbeckia laciniata, sunflower-like tall cone-flower, behind Joe Clark's”).

Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen. See August 31, 1856 (“The Cornus sericea, with its berries just turning, is generally a dull purple now . . . “); August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river, . . ..”)

The Prinos laevigatus. See June 23, 1856 ("Prinos laevigatus common and just begun to bloom behind R’s house.”)  Smooth winterberry holly (Ilex laevigata) is a deciduous shrub which resembles the closely related common winterberry (Ilex verticillate).. It grows up to 4 m high, with oval leaves which are finely toothed along the edges and shiny on their upper surface (the common winterberry has dull leaves). There are separate male and female flowers, usually on separate plants, in the leaf axils. The staminate flowers occur singly or two together and are borne on long stalks, while the pistillate flowers are solitary and on shorter stalks. See also September 4, 1856  "The fever-bush is conspicuously flower-budded.”) and note to October 2, 1856 (“The prinos berries are in their prime.”)

There is the handsomest and most perfect Cornus circinata there [the bog south of Bateman’s Pond] that I know. . .See September 6, 1856  [at Brattleboro] (“Cornus circinata berries, very light blue or bluish-white. ”)

Cornus florida Ravine at Bateman’s Pond . . .See May 18, 1857 (“ There is a large tree [Cornus florida] on the further side the ravine near Bateman's Pond and another by some beeches on the rocky hillside a quarter of a mile northeast.”)

There is quite a collection of rare plants there . . . Arum berries ripe. . . .Already, long before sunset, I feel the dew falling in that cold calla swamp. See September 4, 1856 ("Splendid scarlet arum berries there now in prime .”); September 2, 1853 ("The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion on a rich ground . . .”); June 7, 1857 (“Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime. . .from the bog near Bateman's Pond”);  June 24, 1857 ("I think that this is a cold swamp, i. e. it is springy and shady, and the water feels more than usually cold to my feet.”); June 9, 1857 (“The calla is generally past prime and going to seed.  . . .The water in this Calla Swamp feels cold to my feet, and perhaps this is a peculiarity of it; on the north side a hill. . . .”)