Surprised to see frog spawn

September 1. 

P. M. — To Botrychium Swamp. 

Aster miser not long, but the leaves turned red. 

At the pool by the oaks behind Pratt’s, I see the Myriophyllum ambiguum still, and going to seed, greening the surface of the water. 

The Leersia oryzoides, false rice, or rice cut-grass, is abundant and in prime on the shore there. Also find it on the shore of Merrick’s pasture. It has very rough sheaths. 

Am surprised to see frog(?) spawn just laid, neither in spherical masses nor in a string, but flatted out thin on the surface, some eight or nine inches wide, — a small black spawn, white one side, as usual. 
I saw one or two R. fontinalis on the shore. Was it toad-spawn? 

Ranunculus repens

Ranunculus repens in bloom — as if begun again ? — at the violet wood-sorrel spring. 

Chelone glabra well out, how long? In the same meadow, Aster longifolius well out, not long. That meadow is white with the Eriophorum polystachyon, apparently var. augustifolium (?). Vide it pressed. 

On dry land, common, but apparently getting stale, Panicum clandestinum. 

Dangle-berries now ready for picking. 

At Botrychium Swamp, Nabalus altissimus. Of twenty plants (all in shade) only one out, apparently two or three days. Elsewhere,in open land, N. Fraseri, apparently several days, say five; but not a very rough one. 

Ledum Telephium, how long? 

In the evening, by the roadside, near R. W. E.’s gate, find a glow-worm of the common kind. Of two men, Dr. Bartlett and Charles Bowen, neither had ever seen it!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 1, 1858


Rice cut-grass. Thoreau’s notes it also  on August 28, 1854 and August 1, 1856 at Great Meadows, on August 24, 1859 at the roadside of Corner road by the brook, on August 26, 1859 in prime at Potter’s holes, and on August 26, 1860 in the old pad ditch by the path beyond Hubbard’s Grove. - vascular plants of concord

Ranunculus repens in bloom — as if begun again ? — at the violet wood-sorrel spring. See August 10, 1853 (“The Ranunculus repens numerously out about Britton's Spring.”)

Aster longifolius well out. See September 1, 1856 ("A. longifolius, hardly one seen yet.”)

At Botrychium Swamp, Nabalus altissimus. Of twenty plants (all in shade) only one out.  See September 8, 1856 ("Along this path observed the Nabalus altissimus, flowers in a long panicle of axillary and terminal branches, small-flowered, now in prime.”)

Find a glow-worm of the common kind. Of two men, Dr. Bartlett and Charles Bowen, neither had ever seen it! See January 15, 1858 ("Dr. Durkee . . .has not seen the common glow-worm . . . Showed to Agassiz, Gould, and Jackson, and it was new to them.”)

Fertile bayberry bushes fifteen rods east of yellow birch and six south of apple tree

June 28. 

P. M. — To broom. 

The erect potentilla is a distinct variety, with differently formed leaves as well as different time of flowering, and not the same plant at a different season. Have I treated it as such? 

The Genista tinctoria has been open apparently a week. It has a pretty and lively effect, reminding me for some reason of the poverty-grass. 

Mountain laurel on east side of the rocky Boulder Field wood is apparently in prime. 

I see in many places little barberry bushes just come up densely in the cow-dung, like young apple trees, the berries having been eaten by the cows. Here they find manure and an open space for the first year at least, when they are not choked by grass or weeds. In this way, evidently, many of these clumps of barberries are commenced. 

I notice that the ostrya, when growing in woods, has a remarkable spread for the size of its trunk, more than any tree, methinks. 

Cymbidium, how long? 

Epilobium coloratum, how long? 

We find in the Botrychium Swamp fine wiry asparagus plants, six inches high, with the seeds at bottom, apparently planted by birds, but no plants two years old. 

There are fertile bayberry bushes fifteen rods east of yellow birch and six south of apple tree.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 28, 1858

The erect potentilla is not the same plant at a different season. See  June 28, 1860 ("I meet to-day with a wood tortoise which is eating the leaves of the early potentilla") See also June 4, 1857 ("The early potentilla is now erect in the June grass."); June 4, 1855 (“There are now many potentillas ascendant.”); June 8, 1858 ("The early potentilla is now in some places erect."); and note to June 23, 1851 ("The common cinquefoil (Potentilla simplex) greets me with its simple and unobtrusive yellow flower in the grass.")

I see in many places little barberry bushes just come up densely in the cow-dung, like young apple trees, the berries having been eaten by the cows. See May 29, 1858 ("I mistook dense groves of little barberries in the droppings of cows in the Boulder Field for apple trees at first. So the cows eat barberries, and help disperse or disseminate them exactly as they do the apple! That helps account for the spread of the barberry, then."); August 6, 1858 ("I then looked for the little groves of barberries which some two months ago I saw in the cow-dung thereabouts, but to my surprise I found some only in one spot after a long search") See also November 3, 1857 ("I see on many rocks, etc., the seeds of the barberry, which have been voided by birds, – robins, no doubt, chiefly. How many they must thus scatter over the fields, spreading the barberry far and wide!"); February 4, 1856. ("It it now occurs to me that these and barberries, etc., may be planted by the crows, and probably other birds."). Also September 21, 1860 ("I suspect that such seeds as these will turn out to be more sought after by birds and quadrupeds, and so transported by them, than those lighter ones furnished with a pappus and transported by the wind; and that those the wind takes are less generally the food of birds and quadrupeds than the heavier and wingless seeds.")

Cymbidium, how long? See July 11, 1857 ("The cymbidium is really a splendid flower, with its spike two or three inches long, of commonly three or five large, irregular, concave, star-shaped purple flowers, amid the cool green meadow-grass. It has an agreeable fragrance withal")

Epilobium coloratum [eastern willow-herb], how long?  See July 5, 1856 ("Epilobium coloratum, a day or more."); July 28, 1852 ("Epilobium coloratum, roadside just this side of Dennis's. ")

Fertile bayberry bushes. See May 30, 1855 ("The myrica, bayberry, plucked on the 23d, now first sheds pollen in house, the leaf being but little more expanded on the flowering shoot."); June 2, 1856 ("Myrica cerifera, possibly yesterday. Very few buds shed pollen yet; more, probably, to-day."); June 12, 1857 ("Bayberry well out")

Great pines two or more feet in diameter.

September 16.

A. M. – To Great Yellow Birch, with the Watsons. 

Solidago latifolia in prime at Botrychium Swamp.

Barberries very handsome now. See boys gathering them in good season. 

Some fever-bush berries already ripe. 

Watson has brought me apparently Artemisia vulgaris, growing naturally close to Austin's house in Lincoln; hardly in bloom. 

Walked through that beautiful soft white pine grove on the west of the road in John Flint’s pasture. These trees are large, but there is ample space between them, so that the ground is left grassy. Great pines two or more feet in diameter branch sometimes within two feet of the ground on each side, sending out large horizontal branches on which you can sit. Like great harps on which the wind makes music. There is no finer tree. 

The different stages of its soft glaucous foliage completely concealing the trunk and branches are separated by dark horizontal lines of shadow, the flakes of pine foliage, like a pile of light fleeces. 

I see green and closed cones beneath, which the squirrels have thrown down. On the trees many are already open. Say within a week have begun. 

In one small wood, all the white pine cones are on the ground, generally unopened, evidently freshly thrown down by the squirrels, and then the greater part have already been stripped. They begin at the base of the cone, as with the pitch pine. It is evident that they have just been very busy throwing down the white pine cones in all woods. Perhaps they have stored up the seeds separately. This they can do before chestnut burs open. 

Watson gave me three glow-worms which he found by the roadside in Lincoln last night. They exhibit a greenish light, only under the caudal extremity, and intermittingly, or at will. As often as I touch one in a dark morning, it stretches and shows its light for a moment, only under the last segment. 

An average one is five eighths of an inch long, exclusive of the head, when still; four fifths of an inch, or more, with the head, when moving; one fourth of an inch wide, broadest forward; and from one tenth to one eighth inch deep, nearly (at middle). They have six brown legs within about one fourth of an inch of the forward extremity. 

This worm is apparently composed of twelve scale-like segments, including the narrow terminal one or tail, and not including the head, which at will is drawn under the foremost scale or segment like a turtle's. (I do not remember if the other species concealed its head thus, completely.) Looking down on it, I do not see distinctly more than two antennae, one on each side, whitish at base, dark-brown at tip, and apparently about the same length with the longest of the other species. 

The general color above is black, or say a very dark brown or blackish; the head the same. On each side two faint rows of light-colored dots. The first segment is broadly conical, and much the largest; the others very narrow in proportion to their breadth transversely, and successively narrower, slightly recurved at tip and bristle-pointed and also curved upward at the thin outer edge, while the rounded dorsal ridge is slightly elevated above this. Beneath, dirty white with two rows of black spots on each side.

They always get under the sod by day and bury themselves. They are not often much curled up, never in a ring, nor nearly so much as the other kind. They are much more restless when disturbed, both by day and night, than the others. They are a much coarser insect than the other and approach more nearly to the form of a sow-bug. I kept them more than a week. 

Vide back, August 8th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 16, 1857

Solidago latifolia in prime at Botrychium Swamp. See September 1, 1856 (“Solidago latifolia not out quite.”); October 8, 1856 (“ S. latifolia, far gone.”)

Barberries very handsome now. See boys gathering them . . . See note to September 19, 1856 (“Gather just half a bushel of barberries on hill in less than two hours, or three pecks to-day and yesterday in less than three hours. It is singular that I have so few, if any, competitors.”)

Fever-bush berries already ripe. See September 2, 1857 (“In the botrychium swamp, where the fever-bush is the prevailing underwood”); August 21, 1854 ("The fever-bush berries are partly turned red, perhaps prematurely.”)

On the trees many are already open. Say within a week have begun. See note to September 9, 1857 (“To the Hill for white pine cones.”)

Watson gave me three glow-worms . . . See August 8, 1857 (“B. M. Watson sent me from Plymouth, July 20th, six glow-worms,”)

Three large yellow birch, measured.

September 2. 

Wednesday. P. M. – To Yellow Birches. 

September 2, 2017

Measured the thorn at Yellow Birch Swamp. At one foot from ground it is a foot and ten inches in circumference. The first branch is at two feet seven inches. The tree spreads about eighteen feet. The height is about seventeen feet.

A yellow birch some rods north was, at three feet from ground, four feet plus in circumference. A second, northeast of it, was, at four feet, five feet five inches in circumference. It branched at eight feet, the branches extending north two and a third rods, but south only one and a half. Was some fifty or sixty feet high. 

The third, or largest, yellow birch, at the cellar, was, at three feet from the ground on the inside or at the ground on the outside, just below the branches, ten feet nine inches in circumference. It divides to three branches at ground on the upper side, and these almost immediately to three more, so low and horizontal that you can easily step into it. It extends two rods east and one west, the ends of the branches coming down to height of head all round, nearly. It is about two thirds as high as wide, or thirty-three feet high. Looking from the west, of an irregular diamond shape resting on the ground. The roots inclose some cellar stones. 

All these birches were measured at the smallest place between the ground and branches. Large yellow birches branch low and form a dense broom-like head of many long tapering branches. 

In the botrychium swamp, where the fever-bush is the prevailing underwood, I see a Rhus radicans running up a buttonwood which is some forty feet high. It first makes a complete circle about it horizontally at the ground, then goes winding up it in a serpentine manner on the southwest (?) side, thirty feet at least, or as far as I could see, beginning to put out a few twigs at seven or eight feet. It is a vine one and a half and two inches wide, somewhat flattened, clinging close and flat to the tree by innumerable brown fibres which invest itself and adhere to the bark on each side in a thick web. You can hardly tell if it is alive or dead without looking upward. 

Remembering that it was poisonous to some to handle, it had altogether a venomous look. It made me think of a venomous beast of prey which had sprung upon the tree and had it in its clutches, as the glutton is said to cling to the deer while it sucks its blood. It had fastened on it, as a leopard or panther on a deer and there was no escape. It was not married to the buttonwood, as the vine to the poplar. I saw a still larger one the other day in Natick on an elm. 

Some bass trees blossomed sparingly after all, for I see some fruit.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 2, 1857

The third, or largest, yellow birch, at the cellar, was. . . ten feet nine inches in circumference. See May 18, 1857 (“There is a very grand and picturesque old yellow birch in the old cellar northwest the yellow birch swamp.”)

In the botrychium swamp, where the fever-bush is the prevailing underwood . . .See July 10, 1857 ("He found, about a week ago, the Botrychium Virginianum in bloom, about the bass in Fever-bush Swamp.”)

Some bass trees blossomed sparingly after all, for I see some fruit. See July 9, 1857 (“ I see no flowers on the bass trees by this river this year, nor at Conantum. ”); June 3, 1857 (“The bass at the Island will not bloom this year. (?)”)  See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

September 2, 2017

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

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

Already the elms with denser foliage begin to hang dark against the glaucous mist.

July 13. 

Very hot weather. 

P. M. — To Rattlesnake Fern Swamp. 

I hear before I start the distant mutterings of thunder in the northwest, though I see no cloud. The haymakers are busy raking their hay, to be ready for a shower. They would rather have their grass wet a little than not have the rain. 

I keep on, regardless of the prospect. 

See the indigo-bird still, chirping anxiously on the bushes in that sprout-land beyond the red huckleberry. 

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum berries pretty thick there, and one lass is picking them with a dipper tied to her girdle. The first thought is, What a good school this lass goes to! 

Rattlesnake fern just done. 

I make haste home, expecting a thunder-shower, which we need, but it goes by. The grass by the roadside is burnt yellow and is quite dusty. This, with the sultry air, the parched fields, and the languid inhabitants, marks the season. Already the elms with denser foliage begin to hang dark against the glaucous mist. 

The price of friendship is the total surrender of yourself; no lesser kindness, no ordinary attentions and offerings will buy it. There is forever that purchase to be made with that wealth which you possess, yet only once in a long while are you advertised of such a commodity. 

I sometimes awake in the night and think of friendship and its possibilities, a new life and revelation to me, which perhaps I had not experienced for many months. Such transient thoughts have been my nearest approach to realization of it, thoughts which I know of no one to communicate to. 

I suddenly erect myself in my thoughts, or find myself erected, infinite degrees above the possibility of ordinary endeavors, and see for what grand stakes the game of life may be played. 

Men, with their indiscriminate attentions and ceremonious good-will, offer you trivial baits, which do not tempt; they are not serious enough either for success or failure. 

I wake up in the night to these higher levels of life, as to a day that begins to dawn, as if my intervening life had been a long night. 

I catch an echo of the great strain of Friendship played somewhere, and feel compensated for months and years of commonplace. I rise into a diviner atmosphere, in which simply to exist and breathe is a triumph, and my thoughts inevitably tend toward the grand and infinite, as aeronauts report that there is ever an upper current hereabouts which sets toward the ocean. If they rise high enough they go out to sea, and be hold the vessels seemingly in mid-air like themselves. It is as if I were serenaded, and the highest and truest compliments were paid me. 

The universe gives me three cheers. 

Friendship is the fruit which the year should bear; it lends its fragrance to the flowers, and it is in vain if we get only a large crop of apples without it. 

This experience makes us unavailable for the ordinary courtesy and intercourse of men. We can only recognize them when they rise to that level and realize our dream.

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

Rattlesnake fern swamp. This is Fever-bush Swamp, which HDT today names “Rattlesnake Fern Swamp”. On September 16, 1857 HDT begins to refer to it as Botrychium Swamp. It is the same as his Yellow Birch Swamp See May 5, 1859 and  Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts ( "Rattlesnake Fern")

The grass by the roadside is burnt yellow and is quite dusty. This, with the sultry air, the parched fields, and the languid inhabitants, marks the season. See July 13, 1860 ("For a week past. . the season has had a more advanced look, from the reddening, imbrowning, or yellowing, and ripening of many grasses")

Already the elms with denser foliage begin to hang dark . . .See July 7, 1851 (". . .the heavy shadows of the elms covering the ground with their rich tracery . . . like chandeliers of darkness.")

I sometimes awake in the night and think of friendship and its possibilities. . . See June 11, 1855 ("What if we feel a yearning to which no breast answers? I walk alone. My heart is full. Feelings impede the current of my thoughts. I knock on the earth but no friend appears, and perhaps none is dreaming of me.")

July 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 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 © 2009-2021

To Botrychium Swamp.

July 14.

Perceive now the light-colored tops of chestnuts in bloom, and, when I come near them, an offensive, sickening odor, somewhat like that of the barberry blossoms, but worse. Returning, I notice on a large pool of water in A. Heywood's cow-yard a thick greenish-yellow scum mantling it, an exceedingly rich and remarkable color, as if it were covered with a coating of sulphur. This sort of scum seems to be peculiar to cow-yards, and contrasts with that red one by the Moore's Swamp road last summer.

Out of foulness Nature thus extracts beauty. These phenomena are observed only in summer or warm weather, methinks.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 14, 1860

Chestnuts in bloom. See July 19, 1852 ("The chestnuts on Pine Hill being in blossom reveals the rounded tops of the trees")

At Botrychium Swamp.

May 26

Overcast, rain-threatening; wind northeast

and cool.

Melons have peeped out. 

Our pink azalea. 

River five eighths of an inch below summer level.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 26, 1860

Our pink azalea. See May 26, 1857 ("Pink azalea in garden.") See also May 25, 1856 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden."); May 29, 1855 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden".)

May 26. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 26