You have now forgotten winter and its fashions, and have learned new summer fashions.

August 24.

August 24, 2019

Mollugo verticillata, carpet-weed, flat, whorl-leaved weed in gardens, with small white flowers.

Portulaca oleracea, purslane, with its yellow blossoms.

Chelone glabra.

I have seen the small mulleins as big as a ninepence in the fields for a day or two? 

The weather is warmer again after a week or more of cool days. There is greater average warmth, but not such intolerable heats as in July.

The nights especially are more equably warm now, even when the day has been comparatively rather cool. There are few days now, fewer than in July, when you cannot lie at your length on the grass.

You have now forgotten winter and its fashions, and have learned new summer fashions. Your life may be out-of-doors now mainly.

Rattlesnake grass is ripe.

The pods of the Asclepias pulchra stand up pointedly like slender vases on a salver, an open salver truly! Those of the Asclepias Syriaca hang down.

The interregnum in the blossoming of flowers being well over, many small flowers blossom now in the low grounds, having just reached their summer.  It is now dry enough, and they feel the heat their tenderness required.

The autumnal flowers, — goldenrods, asters, and johnswort, — though they have made demonstrations, have not yet commenced to reign.

The tansy is already getting stale; it is perhaps the first conspicuous yellow flower that passes from the stage.

In Hubbard's Swamp, where the blueberries, dangle berries, and especially the pyrus or choke-berries were so abundant last summer, there is now perhaps not one (unless a blueberry) to be found. Where the choke berries held on all last winter, the black and the red.

The common skullcap (Scutellaria galericulata), quite a handsome and middling - large blue flower.

Lobelia pallida still.

Pointed cleavers or clivers (Galium asprellum).

Is that the naked viburnum, so common, with its white, red, then purple berries, in Hubbard's meadow? 

Did I find the dwarf tree-primrose in Hubbard's meadow to-day?

Stachys aspera, hedge-nettle or wound wort, a rather handsome purplish flower.

The capsules of the Iris versicolor, or blue flag, are now ready for humming [?].

Elderberries are ripe.

H. D. Thoreeau, Journal, August 24, 1851

The pods of the Asclepias pulchra stand up pointedly like slender vases on a salver, an open salver truly! Those of the Asclepias Syriaca hang down. See July 16, 1851 ("The milkweeds, or silkweeds, are rich flowers, now in blossom. The Asclepias syriaca, or common milkweed; its buds fly open at a touch. I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias pulchra) by the roadside, a really handsome flower; also the smaller butterfly, with reddish wings, and a larger, black or steel-blue, with wings spotted red on edge, and one of equal size, reddish copper-colored.");  August 14, 1853 ("Methinks the reign of the milkweeds is over"); October 23, 1852 ("The milkweed (Syriaca) now rapidly discounting. The lanceolate pods having opened, the seeds spring out on the least jar, or when dried by the sun, and form a little fluctuating white silky mass or tuft, each held by the extremities of the fine threads, until a stronger puff of wind sets them free. It is a pleasant sight to see it dispersing its seeds")

The interregnum in the blossoming of flowers being well over, many small flowers blossom now. See June 17, 1854 (“Already the season of small fruits has arrived. .”) July 6, 1851 ("June, the month for grass and flowers, is now past. . . . Now grass is turning to hay, and flowers to fruits."); July 7, 1852 ("And now that there is an interregnum in the blossoming of flowers, so is there in the singing of the birds."); July 13, 1854 ("If there is an interregnum in the flowers, it is when berries begin");  August 6, 1852 ("Methinks there are few new flowers of late. An abundance of small fruits takes their place. Summer gets to be an old story. Birds leave off singing, as flowers blossoming."); August 9, 1853 ("This is the season of small fruits".); August 18, 1853 (“The season of flowers or of promise may be said to be over, and now is the season of fruits?”);


You have now forgotten winter.  See July 5, 1852 ("We have become accustomed to the summer. It has acquired a certain eternity."); August 6, 1852 (" Summer gets to be an old story.")

Is that the naked viburnum, so common, with its white, red, then purple berries, in Hubbard's meadow? See August 24, 1852 ("The Viburnum nudum shows now rich, variegated clusters amid its handsome, firm leaves, bright rosy-cheeked ones mingled with dark-purple.  All do not appear to turn purple.") See also note to September 11, 1851 ("The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow, whose berries were fairest a fortnight ago, appears to be the Viburnum nudum, or withe-rod.")

Elderberries are ripe. See August 11, 1856 ("Elder-berries in a day or two."); August 15, 1852 ("Elder-berry ripe."); August 22, 1852 ("The elder bushes are weighed down with fruit partially turned, and are still in bloom at the extremities of their twigs."); August 29, 1854 ("The cymes of elder-berries, black with fruit, are now conspicuous."); August 29, 1859 ("Elder-berry clusters swell and become heavy and therefore droop, bending the bushes down, just in proportion as they ripen. Hence you see the green cymes perfectly erect, the half-ripe drooping, and the perfectly ripe hanging straight down on the same bush."); August 31, 1853 ("Great black cymes of elder berries now bend down the bushes.")September 1, 1859 ("The elder-berry cyme, held erect, is of very regular form, four principal divisions drooping toward each quarter around an upright central one.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Elder-berries

Raspberries at their height

July 15. 

P. M. — To Ledum Swamp.

First notice Canada thistle, Aralia hispida, Stachys aspera, and Asclepias pulchra. 

The Eriophorum vaginatum done. 

The white orchis not yet, apparently, for a week or more. 

Hairy huckleberry still in bloom, but chiefly done. 

Gather a few Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum. 

Raspberries, in one swamp, are quite abundant and apparently at their height.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 15, 1859

  The Eriophorum vaginatum done.See August 8, 1858 ("The peculiar plants of [Ledum] swamp are, then, as I remember, these nine: spruce, Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, Ledum latifolium, Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, Platanthera blephari glottis, Scheuchzeria palustris, Eriophorum 'vaginatum.")

The white orchis not yet, apparently, for a week or more. See .July 24, 1859 ("The white orchis will hardly open for a week.");  see also  July 23, 1854 ("The white orchis at same place, four or five days at least; spike one and three quarters by three inches."); August 8, 1858 (" I find at Ledum Swamp, near the pool, the white fringed orchis, quite abundant but past prime, only a few, yet quite fresh. It seems to belong to this sphagnous swamp and is some fifteen to twenty inches high, quite conspicuous, its white spike, amid the prevailing green. The leaves are narrow, half folded, and almost insignificant. It loves, then, these cold bogs"); August 11, 1852 ("Platanthera blephariglottis, white fringed orchis.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White Fringed Orchis

To Ledum Swamp.Hairy huckleberry still in bloom, but chiefly done. Gaylussacia bigeloviana  (Gaylussacia dumosa var. bigeloviana;  Gaylussacia dumosa, var. hirtella, Vaccinium dumosum) BOG HUCKLEBERRY  See July 24, 1859 ("The hairy huckleberry still lingers in bloom, — a few of them."); August 8, 1858 (“The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hiriella is the prevailing low shrub, perhaps. I See one ripe berry. This is the only inedible species of ' Vaccinieaz that I know in this town") See also August 30, 1856 ([Beck Stow's Swamp]"I have come out this afternoon a-cranberrying, chiefly to gather some of the small cranberry, Vaccinium Oxycoccus . . . I noticed also a few small peculiar-looking huckleberries hanging on bushes amid the sphagnum, and, tasting, perceived that they were hispid, a new kind to me. Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella. . . It grows from one to two feet high, the leaves minutely resinous- dotted — are not others ? — and mucronate, the racemes long, with leaf-like bracts now turned conspicuously red. Has a small black hairy or hispid berry, shining but insipid and inedible, with a tough, hairy skin left in the mouth ; has very prominent calyx-lobes.I seemed to have reached a new world, so wild a place that the very huckleberries grew hairy and were inedible. I feel as if I were in Rupert's Land, and a slight cool but agreeable shudder comes over me, as if equally far away from human society. . . . That wild hairy huckleberry, inedible as it was, was equal to a domain secured to me and reaching to the South Sea. That was an unexpected harvest. "); June 25, 1857 ("To Gowing's Swamp. . . . Gaylussacia dumosa apparently in a day or two.”): July 2, 1857 (" To Gowing's Swamp. . . .The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, not yet quite in prime. This is commonly an inconspicuous bush, eight to twelve inches high, half prostrate over the sphagnum in which it grows, together with the andromedas, European cranberry, etc., etc., but sometimes twenty inches high quite on the edge of the swamp. It has a very large and peculiar bell-shaped flower, with prominent ribs and a rosaceous tinge, and is not to be mistaken for the edible huckleberry or blueberry blossom. The flower deserves a more particular description than Gray gives it. But Bigelow says well of its corolla that it is "remarkable for its distinct, five angled form." Its segments are a little recurved. The calyx-segments are acute and pink at last; the racemes, elongated, about one inch long, one-sided; the corolla, narrowed at the mouth, but very wide above; the calyx, with its segments, pedicels, and the whole raceme (and indeed the leaves somewhat), glandular-hairy."); July 8, 1857 (to Gowing's Swamp. The Gaylussacia dumosa is now in prime at least"); August 30, 1860 ("Am surprised to find on Minott's hard land, where he once raised potatoes, the hairy huckleberry, which before I had seen in swamps only. The berries are in longer racemes or clusters than any of our huckleberries. They are improved, you would say, by the firmer ground. They are the prevailing berry all over this field. Are now in prime.");  August 30, 1856 ("Consider how remote and novel that [Gowings] swamp. Beneath it is a quaking bed of sphagnum, and in it grow Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, menyanthes (or buck -bean), Gaylussacia dumosa, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, — plants which scarcely a citizen of Concord ever sees.”)

Gather a few Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum. See July 3, 1852 ("When the woods on some hillside are cut off, the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum springs up, or grows more luxuriantly, being exposed to light and air, and by the second year its stems are weighed to the ground with clusters of blueberries covered with bloom, and much larger than they commonly grow, also with a livelier taste than usual, as if remembering some primitive mountain-side given up to them anciently.");July 11, 1857(“Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum ripe. Their dark blue with a bloom is a color that surprises me. ”); July 13, 1852 ("There are evidently several kinds of . . . blueberries not described by botanists: of the very early blueberries at least two varieties, one glossy black with dark-green leaves, the other a rich light blue with bloom and yellowish-green leaves"); July 13, 1854 (“The V. Pennsylvanicum is soft and rather thin and tasteless, mountain and spring like, with its fine light-blue bloom, very handsome, simple and ambrosial.”) July 16, 1857(“I hear of the first early blueberries brought to market.”)

Raspberries, in one swamp, are quite abundant and apparently at their height. July 2, 1851("Some of the raspberries are ripe, the most innocent and simple of fruits”); July 6, 1857 (“Rubus triflorus well ripe.”); July 11, 1857 ("I see more berries than usual of the Rubus triflorus in the open meadow near the southeast corner of the Hubbard meadow blueberry swamp.. . .They are dark shining red and, when ripe, of a very agreeable flavor and somewhat of the raspberry's spirit."); July 17, 1852 ("I pick raspberries dripping with rain beyond Sleepy Hollow. ");. . July 19, 1854 ("In Moore's Swamp I pluck cool, though not very sweet, large red raspberries in the shade") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

July 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 15

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