The air is of late cooler and clearer, autumnal.

September 2. 

P. M. — To Ledum Swamp. 

The pontederia leaves are now decidedly brown or brownish, and this may be the effect of frost, since we have had some considerable in low places. Perhaps they occupy particularly cold places. 

The farmer is obliged to hide his melon-patch in the midst of his corn or potatoes, far away. I sometimes stumble on it as I am going across lots. I see one to day where the watermelons are intermixed with carrots in a carrot-bed, and so concealed by the general resemblance of leaf, etc., at a little distance. 

Going along Clamshell Hill, I look over the meadows. Now, after the first rain raising the river, the first assault on the summer's sluggishness, the air is of late cooler and clearer, autumnal, and the meadows and low grounds, which, of course, have been shorn, acquire a fresh yellowish green as in the spring. This is another phase of the second spring, of which the peeping of hylas by and by is another. 

I once did some surveying for a man who remarked, but not till the job was done, that he did not know when he should pay me. I did not pay much heed to this, though it was unusual, supposing that he meant to pay me some time or other. But after a while he sent to me a quart of red huckleberries, and this I thought was ominous and he distinguished me altogether too much by this gift, since I was not his particular friend. I saw it was the first installment, which would go a great way toward being the last. In course of years he paid a part of the debt in money, and that is the last I have heard of it. 

The sarothra grows thickly, and is now abundantly in bloom, on denuded places, i.e., where the sod and more or less soil has been removed, by sandy roadsides. 

At Ledum Swamp the frosts have now touched the Polygonum Careyi pretty extensively, the leaves and stem, leaving the red spikes; also some erechthites and poke and the tenderest high blueberry shoots, their tips (from where the bushes were cut down). But the Woodwardia Virginica is not touched. (Vide back, August 23d.) 

Poke berries begin at Corner Spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 2, 1859

Now, after the first rain raising the river, the first assault on the summer's sluggishness, the air is of late cooler and clearer, autumnal. See September 2, 1854 ("Bathe at Hubbard’s. The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably"); September 3, 1860 ("Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, day, -- a, cloudless sky, a clear air, with, maybe, veins of coolness”); September 11, 1853 ("Cool weather. Sit with windows shut, and many by fires. . . .The air has got an autumnal coolness which it will not get rid of again.")

The meadows acquire a fresh yellowish green as in the spring. This is another phase of the second spring, of which the peeping of hylas by and by is another. See  August 4, 1853("The low fields which have been mown now look very green again in consequence of the rain, as if it were a second spring."); August 7, 1852 ("At this season we have gentle rain-storms, making the aftermath green . . . as if it were a second spring."); September 14, 1852 ("The grass is very green after the rains, like a second spring,"); October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena re mind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds.")

But after a while he sent to me a quart of red huckleberries, and this I thought was ominous.See January 25, 1858 ("I am amused to see what airs men take upon themselves when they have money to pay me.")

The sarothra grows thickly, and is now abundantly in bloom. See August 30, 1856 ("The sarothra is now apparently in prime on the Great Fields, and comes near being open now, at 3 p. m. Bruised, it has the fragrance of sorrel and lemon, rather pungent or stinging, like a bee.”); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”)

The Woodwardia Virginica is not touched. See September 6, 1858 ("At Ledum Pool edge, I find the Woodwardia Virginica fern, its fruit mostly turned deep reddish-brown")

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

Botanizing Lee's Cliff, Bittern Cliff and Corner Spring

July 17.

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff. 

The young leaves of the slippery elm are a yellowish green and large, and the branches recurved or drooping. 

Hypericum corymbosum. 

Am caught in the rain and take shelter under the thick white pine by Lee's Cliff. 

I see thereunder an abundance of chimaphila in bloom. It is a beautiful flower, with its naked umbel of crystalline purplish-white flowers, their disks at an angle with the horizon. On its lower side a ring of purple (or crimson) scales at the base of its concave petals, around the large, green, sticky ovary. 

The Sagina procumbens continues to flower sparingly. It agrees with Gray's plate. 

I found yesterday, at and above the Hemlocks on the Assabet, the dicksonia, apparently in prime; Aspidium Noveboracense  Aspidium marginale, apparently in prime; Osmunda Claytoniana and cinnamomea, done. 

I find to-day, at Bittern Cliff and at Lee's, Asplenium ebeneum (the larger), apparently nearly in prime, and A. Trichomanes, apparently just begun. This very commonly occurs in tufts at the base of the last, like radical leaves to it. 

Rock Polypody & Maidenhair spleenwort
(Polypodium vulgare & AspidiumTrichomanes,)
September, 2018

At Lee's Cliff, Polypodium vulgare, not yet brown fruit. 

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; also an almost thrice pinnate fern with a very chaffy stipe, in prime, already yellowish above, somewhat A. cristatum-like, some of the dots confluent. 

 
Ampelopsis out of bloom at Lee's. 

Aralia racemosa, not in bloom, at Corner Spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 17, 1857


Hypericum corymbosum. See July 21, 1856 ("Hypericum corymbosum, a day or two."); July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

The Sagina procumbens . . .agrees with Gray's plate. See Asa Gray, The Genera of the Plants of the United States

I see thereunder [Lee's Cliff] an abundance of chimaphila in bloom..See July 3, 1852 ("The Chimaphila umbellata, wintergreen, must have been in blossom some time.”); July 8, 1857 ("Chimaphila umbellata, apparently a day or two. ");   July 12, 1857 ("The Chimaphila umbellata flower-buds make a very pretty umbel, of half a dozen small purple balls surmounted by a green calyx. They contrast prettily with the glossy green leaves."); July 24, 1856 ("Chimaphila maculata, three flowers, apparently but few days, while the umbellatais quite done there. Leaves just shooting up.” ) ; November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”)

Asplenium ebeneum (the larger), apparently nearly in prime, and A. Trichomanes, apparently just begun. See April 6, 1858 (“The asplenium ferns of both species are very generally perfectly withered and shrivelled.”); August 30, 1853 (“The dwarf spleenwort grows in the sharp angles of the rocks in the side of Lee's Cliff, its small fronds spreading in curved rays, its matted roots coming away in triangular masses, moulded by the rock. The ebony spleenwort stands upright against the rocks.”); October 28, 1857 (“Both aspleniums and the small botrychium are still fresh, as if they were evergreen. The latter sheds pollen. The former are most fresh under the shelter of rocks.”); November 18, 1858 ("I go along under the east side of Lee's Cliff, looking at the evergreen ferns . . .    How pretty the smallest asplenium sometimes, in a recess under a shelving rock, as it were pinned on rosettewise, as if it were the head of a breastpin.") See also 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 (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).") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort

Aralia racemosa, not in bloom . . .See September 4, 1856  ("Aralia racemosa berries just ripe . . . not edible. ")

And now the lark must look out for the mowers.

July 11. 

July11,  2016

P. M. — To Corner Spring and Cliffs. 

Haying is fairly begun, and for some days I have heard the sound of the mowing-machine, and now the lark must look out for the mowers. 

The flowering fern, which is so much larger in the copses, though much is brown and effete, is still perhaps in prime. 

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum ripe. Their dark blue with a bloom is a color that surprises me. 

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. 

I see more berries than usual of the Rubus triflorus in the open meadow near the southeast corner of the Hubbard meadow blueberry swamp. Call it, perhaps, Cymbidium Meadow. They are dark shining red and, when ripe, of a very agreeable flavor and somewhat of the raspberry's spirit. 

Petty morel not yet, by the bars this side Corner Spring; nor is the helianthus there budded yet.

Apocynum cannabinum, with its small white flowers and narrow sepals half as long as whole corolla, apparently two or three days. 

The trumpet-weed is already as high as my head, with a rich glaucous bloom on its stem. 

Indeed, looking off into the vales from Fair Haven Hill, where a thin blue haze now rests almost universally, I see that the earth itself is invested with a glaucous bloom at this season like some fruits and rapidly growing stems. 

Thermometer at 93° + this afternoon. 

Am surprised to find the water of Corner Spring spoiled for the present, however much I clear it out, by the numbers of dead and dying frogs in it (Rana palustris). There is a mortality among which has made them hop to this spring to die. 

There is an abundance of corydalis on the top of the Cliffs, but most of it is generally out of bloom, i. e. excepting a twig or two, and it is partly withered, not so fresh as that in our garden; but some in the shade is quite green and fresh and abundantly blooming still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 11, 1857

And now the lark must look out for the mowers. See July 11, 1854 ("I hear Conant's cradle cronching the rye behind the fringe of bushes in the Indian field. Reaping begun."); July 29, 1853 ("About these times some hundreds of men with freshly sharpened scythes make an irruption into my garden when in its rankest condition, and clip my herbs all as close as they can,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking and June 30,1851 ("The lark sings a note which belongs to a New England summer evening. "); July 16, 1851 ("The lark sings in the meadow; the very essence of the afternoon is in his strain. This is a New England sound"); July 18, 1852 ("The larks and blackbirds and kingbirds are heard in the meadows."); July 26, 1853 ("Lark, too seen now, four or five together, sing as of yore"); July 26, 1856 ("I see young larks fly pretty well before me.")

Rubus triflorus in the open meadow near the southeast corner of the Hubbard meadow blueberry swamp. See note to July 6, 1857 ("Rubus triflorus well ripe.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

Apocynum cannabinum, with its small white flowers and narrow sepals. See note to September 2, 1856 ("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.")

Thermometer at 93° + this afternoon. See July 2, 1855 ("At 2 P. M. — Thermometer north side of house ... 93°") 

Dead and dying frogs in Corner Spring (Rana palustris). See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The   Pickerel frog  (Rana palustris or Lithobates palustris)

July 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 11

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

The new steam-whistle

August 7

Hemp, perhaps a week. 

Heard this forenoon what I thought at first to be children playing on pumpkin stems in the next yard, but it turned out to be the new steam-whistle music, what they call the Calliope (!) in the next town. It sounded still more like the pumpkin stem near at hand, only a good deal louder. Again I mistook it for an instrument in the house or at the door, when it was a quarter of a mile off, from habit locating it by its loudness. At Acton, six miles off, it sounded like some new seraphim in the next house with the blinds closed. All the milkmen and their horses stood still to hear it. The horses stood it remarkably well. It was not so musical as the ordinary whistle. 

P. M. — With a berry party, ride to Conantum. 

At Blackberry Steep, apparently an early broad- leafed variety of Desmodium paniculatum, two or three days. This and similar plants are common there and may almost name the place. The D. rotundifolium is there abundant; also, beside, Lespedeza hirta and capitata, the elliptic-oblong L. violacea and the angustata, as also at Heywood Peak. All these plants seem to love a dry open hillside, a steep one. Are rarely upright, but spreading, wand-like. 

Aster patens, a day or more. Inula, some time. Mulgedium, perhaps a fortnight. Eupatorium sessilifolium, apparently about August 5th. 

I suspect that I see but one species of smooth-stemmed grape as yet. 

I must contrast the Galium circoezans and pilosum (?) more carefully. Vide if the first ever has purple flowers. The only difference, perhaps, that I yet notice is that the leaves of the latter are scarcely three-nerved and are more rounded or obovate, and it is a later plant. 

I see that common gall on goldenrods now on an S. coesia. 

The river has been raised by the rain, and water stands still in low grass ground. 

The leaves in low land, as of the mulgedium, are white with mildew, owing  the continued dampness of dog-days. One mulgedium at Corner Spring is at least ten feet high and hollow all the way. 

Those who have weak eyes complain of the darkness of the late dog-days.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 7, 1856

Hemp, perhaps a week. See February 9, 1853 ("Dr. Harris thinks the Indians had no real hemp but their apocynum.");  August 4, 1854 ("Cannabis sativa."); August 11, 1852 ("Cannabis sativa, apparently out."); August 16, 1851 ("Hemp (Cannabis sativa), said by Gray to have been introduced; not named by Bigelow. Is it not a native?"); August 28, 1852 ("Hemp still in blossom.”) ;  September 2, 1856 ("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  . . .  my eyes fell on it, aye, in three different places, and different varieties of it.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Dogsbane and Indian hemp

I see that common gall on goldenrods now. See July 30, 1853 ("I See some green galls on a goldenrod three quarters of an inch in diameter, shaped like a fruit or an Eastern temple, with two or three little worms inside, completely changing the destiny of the plant . . . It suggests that Nature is a kind of gall, that the Creator stung her and man is the grub she is destined to house and feed.”)

August 7. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 7

All the milkmen and

their horses stand still to hear 

the Calliope.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The new steam-whistle

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 © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560807

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant

July 13

P. M. — To Corner Spring. 

Orchis lacera, apparently several days, lower part of spike, willow-row, Hubbard side, opposite Wheildon's land. 

See quite a large flock of chattering red-wings, the flight of first broods. 

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant along walls, to be strung on herd's-grass, but not much flavor to them; honest and wholesome. See where the mowers have plucked them. Gather the large black and blackening ones. No drought has shrivelled them this year. 

Heard yesterday a sharp and loud ker-pheet, I think from a surprised woodchuck, amid bushes, — the siffleur. Reminds me somewhat of a peetweet, and also of the squeak of a rabbit, but much louder and sharper. And all is still. 

Hubbard's meadow — or I will call it early meadow-aster, some days, now rather slender and small- bushed. Drosera longifolia and also rotundifolia, some time. Polygala sanguinea, some time, Hubbard's Meadow Path; say meadow-paths and banks. 

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. 

Have noticed bright-red geranium and pyrus leaves a week or more. 

In Hubbard's euphorbia pasture, cow blackbirds about cows. At first the cows were resting and ruminating in the shade, and no birds were seen. Then one after another got up and went to feeding, straggling into the midst of the field. With a chattering appeared a cowbird, and, with a long slanting flight, lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and watched for insects, the cow still eating along and almost hitting it, taking no notice of it. Soon it is joined by two or three more birds. 

An abundance of spurry in the half-grown oats adjoining, apparently some time out. 

Yellow lily, how long? 

Am surprised to see an Aster laevis, out a day or two, in road on sandy bank. 

Goldfinches twitter over. 

Hydrocotyle, some time. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1856

See quite a large flock of chattering red-wings, the flight of first broods. See July 11, 1856 ("Hear now the link of bobolinks, and see quite a flock of red-wing blackbirds and young."); July 15, 1854 ("We seem to be passing, or to have passed, a dividing line between spring and autumn . . . Many birds begin to fly in small flocks like grown-up broods."); July 22, 1855 ("See small flocks of red-wings, young and old, now, over the willows."); July 29, 1859 ("See large flocks of red-wings now, the young grown.")

Thimble-berries are now fairly ripe and abundant . . . No drought has shrivelled them this year. See July 4, 1852 ("One thimble-berry which will be quite ripe by to-morrow.");  July 18, 1854 ("Every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems.") 

Saw and heard two or three redstarts at Redstart Woods, where they probably have nests. See June 23, 1855 ("Probably a redstart’s nest on a white oak sapling, twelve feet up, on forks against stem. Have it. See young redstarts about.”); July 8, 1857 ("To Laurel Glen. . . . Hear apparently redstarts there, — so they must have nests near")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

Heard yesterday a sharp and loud ker-pheet, I think from a surprised woodchuck, amid bushes, — the siffleur. See July 14, 1845 ("Alek Therien, he called himself; a Canadian now, a woodchopper, a post-maker; makes fifty posts—holes them, i. e.—in a day; and who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. And he too has heard of Homer, and if it were not for books, would not know what to do rainy days.")

A cowbird. . . lit close to a cow's nose, within the shadow of it, and watched for insects. See August 25, 1855 ("I count about one hundred and fifty cowbirds about eight cows, running before their noses and in odd positions, awkwardly walking with a straddle, often their heads down and tails up a long time at once, occasionally flying to keep up with a cow.")

Goldfinches twitter over. See July 15, 1854 ("This cooler, still, cloudy weather after the rain is very autumnal and restorative to our spirits. The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall."); July 17, 1852 ("Again methinks I hear the goldfinch.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

July 13.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

See quite a large flock

of chattering red-wings,

the flight of first broods. 

Ripe thimble-berries

now abundant along walls

but not much flavor.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ripe Thimble-berries

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 © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560713

A great flight of ephemera over the water.

June 8 

We have had six days either rain-threatening or rainy, the last two somewhat rainy or mizzling. 

P. M. -— To Cedar Swamp.

Pulled up a yellow lily root, four feet long and branching, two and a half inches diameter and about same size at each end where it had broken off, tree-like. Broken off, it floats. Great white rootlets put out all along it. 

I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. It is dead at top and slightly leafed below. Was it the severe winter, or cutting off the protecting evergreens? It grows four or five rods from knoll near a sawed stump between two large red maple clumps. 

The three-leaved Solomon’s-seal has almost entirely done, while the two leaved is quite abundant.

Stellaria longrfolia opposite Barbarea Shore not yet out. It is obviously different from what I call S. borealis, much more tall (one foot high) and upright, with branches ascending (not spreading) (the other grows in a dense mass at Corner Spring); leaves longer and more linear, and not at all ciliate like the other; stem much sharper-angled, almost winged; flower-buds more long and slender; and grows in high grass and is later. 

I observe in a mass of damp shavings and leaves and sand there, in the shade, a little prostrate willow just coming into flower, perhaps a black willow. Pulling it up, I find it to be a twig about sixteen inches long, two thirds buried in the damp mass. This was probably broken off by the ice, brought down, washed up, and buried like a layer there; and now, for two thirds its length, it has put out rootlets an inch or two long abundantly, and leaves and catkins from the part above ground. 

So vivacious is the willow, availing itself of every accident to spread along the river’s bank. The ice that strips it only disperses it the more widely. It never says die. May I be as vivacious as a willow.

Some species are so brittle at the base of the twigs that they break on the least touch, but they are as tough above as tender at base, and these twigs are only thus shed like seeds which float away and plant themselves in the first bank on which they lodge. I commonly litter my boat with a shower of these black willow twigs whenever I run into them. 

A kingbird’s nest on a black cherry, above Barbarea Shore. loosely constructed, with some long white rags dangling; one egg. 

At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it. It appeared to have a black crown with some crest, yellowish (?) bill, gray-brown back, black tail, two faint whitish bars on wings, a dirty cream-white throat, and a gray or ash white breast and beneath, whitest in middle.

I had noticed when coming up the river two or three dead suckers, one with a remarkable redness about the anal fins; and this reminded me of the ephemera. It was the 2d of June, 1854, that I observed them in such numbers. 

When I returned to my boat, about five, the weather being mizzling enough to require an umbrella, with an easterly wind-and dark for the hour, my boat being by chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera over the water, though not so great as that. 

The greater part were flying down-stream against the wind, but if you watched one long enough you would see him suddenly turn at length and fly swiftly back up the stream. They advanced against the wind faster than I floated along. They were not coupled nor coupling, — I only noticed two coupled, — but flew, most of them, with their bodies curved, and from time to time each one descended to the water and touched it, or rested on it a second or two, sometimes several minutes. 

They were generally able to rise, but very often before it arose, or not being able to rise, it was seized by a fish. While some are flying down they are met by others coming up. The water was dimpled with the leaping fish. They reach about ten or fifteen feet high over the water, and I also saw a stream of them about as thick over a narrow meadow a dozen rods from the water in the woods. The weather was evidently unfavorable, what with the wind and the rain, and they were more or less confined to the shore, hovering high over the bushes and trees, where the wind was strong over the river. I had not noticed any on leaves.

At one place, against Dodge’s Brook, where they were driven back by a strong head wind at a bend, more than usual were wrecked on the water and the fishes were leaping more numerously than elsewhere. The river was quite alive with them, and I had not thought there were so many in it, — great black heads and tails continually thrust up on all sides of my boat. You had only to keep your eye on a floating fly a minute to see some fishy monster rise and swallow it with more or less skill and plashing. 

Some skillfully seized their prey without much plashing, rising in a low curve and just showing their backs; others rose up perpendicularly, half their length out of water, showing their black backs or white bellies or gleaming sides; others made a noisy rush at their prey and leaped entirely out of water, falling with a loud plash. You saw twenty black points at once. They seemed to be suckers; large fish, at any rate, and probably various kinds. What a sudden surfeit the fishes must have! 

They are of various sizes, but generally their solid bodies about three quarters of an inch long or less, yellowish tinge, transparent, with rows of brown spots; wings gauze-like, with a few opaque brown spots.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  June 8, 1856

I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. See April 24, 1854 ("New plant (Racemed andromeda) flower-budded at Cedar Swamp . . . — upright dense racemes of reddish flower-buds on reddish terminal shoots.”)   See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cedar Swamps

The three-leaved Solomon’s-seal has almost entirely done, while the two leaved is quite abundant. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Three-leaved  false Solomon's-seal (Smilacina trifolia);  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Two-leaved Solomon's Seal (Canada mayflower or false lily-of-the-valley)

Stellaria longrfolia opposite Barbarea Shore not yet out. It is obviously different from what I call S. borealis See May 15, 1856 ("Just on the brink of this Heywood Spring, I find what may be the Stellaria borealis [boreal starwort/stitchwort](if it is not the longifolia [long-leaved stitchwort], ”); See also June 6, 1854 ("The Stellaria longifolia has been out, apparently, a day or two.");  May 19, 1858  ("Stellaria borealis well out, apparently several days."); June 6, 1859 ("Stellaria longifolia, at Well Meadow Head, how long?")

So vivacious is the willow, availing itself of every accident to spread along the river’s bank.See  June 3, 1857 ("I see a large branch of S. lucida, which has been broken off probably by the ice in the winter and come down from far up-stream and lodged, butt downward, amid some bushes, where it has put forth pink fibres from the butt end in the water, and is growing vigorously. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Propogation of the Willow.

A kingbird’s nest on a black cherry . . . loosely constructed, with some long white rags dangling; one egg. See  June 8, 1858 ("A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork – or against upright part – of a willow") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it.  See June 5, 1856. ("The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine . . .”); May 15, 1855 ("I hear from the top of a pitch pine in the swamp that loud, clear, familiar whistle . . . I saw it dart out once, catch an insect, and return to its perch muscicapa-like. As near as I could see it had a white throat, was whitish, streaked with dark, beneath, darker tail and wings, and maybe olivaceous shoulders; bright yellow within bill. Probably M. Cooperi.”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Olive-sided flycatcher or pe-pe

I had noticed when coming up the river two or three dead suckers. See June 8, 1858 ("In several places I see where dead suckers have been at last partly devoured by some animal. "); May 23, 1854 ("How many springs shall I continue to see the common sucker (Catostomus Bostoniensis) floating dead on our river!"); May 30, 1853 ("Whence came all those dead suckers, a dozen at least, which we saw floating to-day.")

By chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera over the water . . . See June 2, 1854 ( "The whole atmosphere over the river was full of shad-flies."); May 9, 1854 (" [Professor Harris ] says . . . the shad-flies (with streamers and erect wings ) are ephemeræ. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

June 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 8

Something reminds me

 of the ephemera – now I 

notice a great flight.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A great flight of ephemera 

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560608

Wading through Kalmia Swamp just to look at the leaves.

May 26

8 A. M. — By boat to Kalmia glauca and thence to scouring-rush. 

Again a strong cold wind from the north by west, turning up the new and tender pads. The young white lily pads are now red and crimson above, while greenish beneath. 

Nightshade dark-green shoots are eight inches long. Button-bush would commonly be said to begin to leaf. 

At Clamshell. Ranunculus acris and bulbosus pollen apparently about two or three days. Comandra pollen apparently two days there. Arenaria serpyllifolia and scleranthus, how long? 

White oak pollen. The oaks apparently shed pollen about four days later than last year; may be owing to the recent cold weather. 

Interrupted fern pollen the 23d; may have been a day or two. Cinnamon fern to-day. 

Checkerberry shoots one inch high. 

Carex stipata? Close-spiked sedge in Clamshell Meadow some time. 

Early willow on right beyond Hubbard’s Bridge leafed since 12th; say 19th or generally before button-bush.

At Kalmia Swamp.

Nemopanthes, apparently several days, and leaf say before tupelo. White spruce pollen one or two days at least, and now begins to leaf. 

To my surprise the Kalmia glauca almost all out; perhaps began with rhodora. A very fine flower, the more interesting for being early. The leaf say just after the lambkill. 

I was wading through this white spruce swamp just to look at the leaves. The more purple rhodora rose here and there above the small andromeda, so that I did not at first distinguish the K. glauca. When I did, probably my eyes at first confounded it with the lambkill, and I did not remember that this would not bloom for some time. There were a few leaves just faintly started. 

But at last my eyes and attention both were caught by those handsome umbels of the K. glauca, rising, one to three together, at the end of bare twigs, six inches or more above the level of the andromeda, etc., together with the rhodora. The rhodora did not accompany it into the more open and level and wet parts, where was andromeda almost alone.

Umbels, one and one half inches [in] diameter, of five to eighteen flowers on red threads three quarters to an inch long, at first deep rose-color, after pale rose. Twigs bare except two or three small old leaves close to the end of the dry-looking twigs. Flowers not arranged in whorls about the twig, but rising quite above it. The larger flowers about nine-sixteenths inch diameter. Flowers somewhat larger, methinks, and more terminal than lambkill. The whole about two feet high in sphagnum. 

The lambkill is just beginning to be flower-budded.

What that neat song-sparrow-like nest of grass merely, in the wet sphagnum under the andromeda there, with three eggs, -- in that very secluded place, surrounded by the watery swamp and andromeda --  from which the bird stole like a mouse under the andromeda? Vide egg. It is narrower and more pointed at one end and lighter, a little, -- the brown less confluent, -- than that of the song sparrow with one spot on breast which took from ivy tree tuft. The last is bluish-white very thickly spotted and blotched with brown. Four eggs first seen, I think, the 22d.

Swamp-pink leaf before lambkill. A mosquito. Lupine in house from Fair Haven Hill, and probably in field.

At the screech owl’s nest I now find two young slumbering, almost uniformly gray above, about five inches long, with little dark-grayish tufts for incipient horns (?). Their heads about as broad as their bodies. I handle them without their stirring or opening their eyes. There are the feathers of a small bird and the leg of the Mus leucopus in the nest. 

The partridge which on the 12th had left three cold eggs covered up with oak leaves is now sitting on eight. She apparently deserted her nest for a time and covered it. 

Already the mouse-ear down begins to blow in the fields and whiten the grass, together with the bluets.

In Conant’s thick wood on the White-Pond-ward lane, hear the evergreen-forest note, but commonly, at a distance, only the last notes — a fine sharp té te'. The tanager? 

See a beautiful blue-backed and long-tailed pigeon sitting daintily on a low white pine limb.

I perceive no new life in the pipes (Equisetum hyemale), except that some are flower-budded at top and may open in a week, and on pulling them up I find a new one just springing from the base at root. The flower—bud is apparently on those dry-looking last year’s plants which I thought had no life in them.

Returning, I lay on my back again in Conant’s thick wood. Saw a redstart over my head there; black with a sort of brick red on sides of breast, spot on wing, and under root of tail. Note heard once next day, at Kalmia Swamp, somewhat like aveet a'veet aveet a'veet. 

In the meanwhile hear another note, very smart and somewhat sprayey, rasping, tshrip tshrip tshrip tshrip, or five or six times with equal force each time. The bird hops near, directly over my head. It is black, with a large white mark forward on wings and a fiery orange throat, above and below eye, and line on crown, yellowish beneath, white vent, forked tail, dusky legs and bill; holds its wings (which are light beneath) loosely. It inclines to examine about the lower branches of the white pines or midway up. The Blackbumian warbler very plainly; whose note Nuttall knows nothing about. 

Two-leaved Solomon’s-seal pollen not long in most places. Ranunculus recurvatus at Corner Spring up several days at least; pollen. 

Trillium pollen maybe several days. Arum, how long? The Ranunculus Purshii in that large pool in the Holden Swamp Woods makes quite a show at a little distance now. 

See to-day (and saw the 23d) a larger peetweet like bird on the shore, with longer, perhaps more slender, wings, black or blackish without white spots; all white beneath; and when it goes off it flies higher. Is it not the Totanus solitarius, which Brown found at Goose Pond? 

I think that the red-fruited choke-berry has shed pollen about a day, though I have not examined. The leaves are a little downy beneath and the common peduncle and the pedicels stout and quite hairy, while the black-fruited is smooth and gloossy.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 26, 1855

Saw a redstart over my head there; black with a sort of brick red on sides of breast. See   April 11, 1853("American redstart, male, is black forward, coppery orange beneath and stripe on wings and near base of tail. Female dark ashy and fainter marks.");  May 17, 1856 ("At the Kalmia Swamp, see and hear the redstart, very lively and restless, flirting and spreading its reddish tail. The sylvias -- S. Americana and redstart and summer yellow bird, etc. — are very lively there now after the rain, in the warm, moist air, amid the hoary bursting buds of maples, oaks, etc. "); May 21, 1856 ("The redstarts are inquisitive and hop near.");See also  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

The Blackbumian warbler. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blackburnian Warbler

Purple rhodora rose . . .above the small andromeda, See note to May 26, 1859 ("The rhodora at Ledum Swamp is now in its perfection, brilliant islands of color.")

But at last my eyes and attention both were caught by those handsome umbels of the K. glauca . . . five to eighteen flowers on red threads three quarters to an inch long, at first deep rose-color, after pale rose. Twigs bare. See November 4, 1858 ("Objects are concealed from our view not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray (continued) as because there is no intention of the mind and eye toward them. We do not realize how far and widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to look. The greater part of the phenomena of nature are for this reason concealed to us all our lives.. . . We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else."); January 9, 1855 ("Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp,  I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots . . .the Kalmia glauca var.rosmarinifolia. Very delicate evergreen opposite linear leaves, strongly revolute, somewhat reddish-green above, the blossom-buds quite conspicuous. . . .The pretty little blossom-buds arranged crosswise in the axils of the leaves as you look down on them."); May 23, 1857 ("To Holden Swamp by boat . . .Kalmia glauca yesterday. Rhodora, on shore there, a little before it");  May 27, 1856 ("To Kalmia Swamp . . . Kalmia in prime, and rhodora. Apparently the oldest-blossomed kalmia the palest.")

 Note: the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia is known as rosemary-leaf laurel or alpine bog laurel (Andromeda Polifolia) H. Peter Loewer, Thoreau's Garden: Native Plants for the American Landscape 32-33

.

 The lambkill is just beginning to be flower-budded. See June 9, 1855 ("Lambkill out."); June 10. June 10, 1855 (" The Kalmia glauca is done before the lambkill is begun here."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Lambkill (Kalmia augustifolia)

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

Young white lily pads 

now red and crimson above

while greenish beneath.

Wading through this white 

spruce swamp just to look at leaves –

 Kalmia glauca!

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Wading through Kalmia Swamp just to look at the leaves.

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 ©  2009-2026