The shad-bush in bloom.

May 15. 

7.30 A. M. – Ride to the Shawsheen in the northeast of Bedford. 

Meadow saxifrage well out, many of them, at the tan-yard meadow. 

The Equisetum limosum will apparently (?) open there in two or three days.

Thalictrum dioicum abundant, apparently in prime; how long? It is a very interesting, graceful, and delicate plant, especially the sterile, with its pretty, commonly purple, petal-like sepals, and its conspicuous long yellow anthers in little bare clusters (?), trembling over the meadow. Yet a frail and rather inobvious plant. It grows on moist, commonly rocky slopes next to meadows at the base of hills, or by rocks in rather swampy woods. 

The meadows are now full of sedges in bloom, which shed clouds of pollen and cover my shoes with it. 

The cassia has not come up yet. 

High blueberries well out. 

Hear the evergreen-forest note. 

Also, in rather low ground in Bedford, a note much like the summer yellowbird's, or between that and the redstart, and see the bird quite near, but hopping quite low on the bushes. It looked like the yellowbird with a bluish ash top of head. What was it? [Probably parti-colored warbler.]

The shad-bush in bloom is now conspicuous, its white flags on all sides. Is it not the most massy and conspicuous of any wild plant now in bloom? I see where the farmer mending his fence has just cut one to make part of the fence, and it is stretched out horizontally, a mass of white bloom. 

Measured two apple trees by the road from the middle of Bedford and Fitch’s mill. One, which divided at the ground, was thirteen and a half feet in circumference there, around the double trunk; but another, in a field on the opposite side of the road, was the most remarkable tree for size. 

This tree was exceedingly low for the size of its trunk, and the top rather small. At three feet from the ground it measured ten and a quarter feet in circumference, and immediately above this sent off a branch as big as a large apple tree. It was hollow, and on one side part of the trunk had fallen out. These trees mark the residence of an old settler evidently.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal  May 15, 1858

It looked like the yellowbird with a bluish ash top of head. See May 15, 1856 ("See also, for a moment, in dry woods, a warbler with blue-slate head and apparently all yellow beneath for a minute, nothing else conspicuous; note slightly like tseep, tseep, tseep, tseep, tsit sitter ra-re-ra")  ; May 16, 1858 ("See again the warbler of yesterday. . . . Its note, with little variation, is like twit twit, twit twit, twitter twitter twe. It must be the parti-colored warbler"); and note to May 13, 1856 ("The tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana . . .the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it?.”)

Hear the evergreen-forest note. See May 11, 1854 ("Hear the evergreen-forest note"); May 6, 1855 ("The er er twe, ter ter twe, evergreen-forest note.");  June 1, 1854 ("Hear my evergreen-forest note, . . . I get a glimpse of its black throat and, I think, yellow head "); May 30, 1855 ("In the thick of the wood between railroad and Turnpike, hear the evergreen forest note, and see probably the bird,-- black throat, greenish-yellow or yellowish-green head and back, light-slate (?) wings with two white bars. Is it not the black-throated green warbler?”).

The shad-bush in bloom is now conspicuous. See May 9, 1852 ("The first shad-bush, Juneberry, or service-berry (Amclanchier canadensis), in blossom.") and note to May 13, 1852 ("The shad-blossom days in the woods.")

Up Assabet with Bradford and Hoar.

August 26. 

Wednesday. P. M. — Up Assabet with Bradford and Hoar. 

B. tells me he found the Malaxis liliifolia on Kineo. Saw there a tame gull as large as a hen, brown dove color. A lumberer called some timber “frowy.” 

B. has found Cassia Chamoacrista by the side of the back road between Lincoln and Waltham, about two miles this side of Waltham.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 26, 1857

B. tells me he found the Malaxis liliifolia on Kineo. See August 24, 1857 (“We came down northward to the Boston and Worcester turnpike, by the side of which the Malaxis liliifolia grows, though we did not find it. ”)

B. has found Cassia Chamoacrista by the side of the back road . . . See August 11, 1856 ("Mr. Bradford . . .gives me a sprig of Cassia Marilandica, wild senna, found by Minot Pratt just below Leighton's by the road side.")

Though I find only one new plant I am bewildered, as it were, by a variety of new things.

August 16.

8 A.M. — To Cassia Field. 

Chenopodium hybridum, a tall rank weed, five feet at least, dark-green, with a heavy (poisonous ?) odor compared to that of stramonium; great maple(?)- shaped leaves. How deadly this peculiar heavy odor!

Diplopappus linariifolius, apparently several days. 

Ambrosia pollen now begins to yellow my clothes. 

Cynoglossum officinale, a long time, mostly gone to seed, at Bull's Path and north roadside below Leppleman's. Its great radical leaves made me think of smooth mullein. The flower has a very peculiar, rather sickening odor; Sophia thought like a warm apple pie just from the oven (I did not perceive this). A pretty flower, however. I thoughtlessly put a handful of the nutlets into my pocket with my handkerchief. But it took me a long time to pick them out my handkerchief when I got home, and I pulled out many threads in the process. 

At roadside opposite Leighton's, just this side his barn, Monarda fistulosa, wild bergamot, nearly done, with terminal whorls and fragrance mixed of balm and summer savory. The petioles are not ciliated like those on Strawberry Hill road. 

Wild Senna ~ wikipedia

(Wild Senna = Cassia = Cassia hebecarpa = Sennahebecarpa = Northern wild senna)

Am surprised to find the cassia so obvious and abundant. Can see it yellowing the field twenty-five rods off, from top of hill. It is perhaps the prevailing shrub over several acres of moist rocky meadow pasture on the brook; grows in bunches, three to five feet high (from the ground this year), in the neighborhood of alders, hardhack, elecampane, etc. 

The lower flowers are turning white and going to seed, — pods already three inches long, — a few upper not yet opened. It resounds with the hum of bumblebees. It is branched above, some of the half-naked (of leaves) racemes twenty inches long by five or six wide. Leaves alternate, of six or eight pairs of leafets and often an odd one at base, locust-like. 

Looked as if they had shut up in the night. Mrs. Pratt says they do. E. Hoar says she has known it here since she was a child. 

The cynoglossum by roadside opposite, and, by side of tan-yard, the apparently true Mentha viridis, or spearmint, growing very rankly in a dense bed, some four feet high, spikes rather dense, one to one and a half inches long, stem often reddish, leaves nearly sessile. Say August 1st at least. 

Some elecampane with the cassia is six feet high, and blades of lower leaves twenty inches by seven or nine.  

What a variety of old garden herbs — mints, etc. — are naturalized along an old settled road, like this to Boston which the British travelled! And then there is the site, apparently, of an old garden by the tan-yard, where the spearmint grows so rankly. I am intoxicated with the fragrance. 

Though I find only one new plant (the cassia), yet old acquaintances grow so rankly, and the spearmint intoxicates me so, that I am bewildered, as it were by a variety of new things. An infinite novelty. All the roadside is the site of an old garden where fragrant herbs have become naturalized, — hounds-tongue, bergamot, spearmint, elecampane, etc. I see even the tiger lily, with its bulbs, growing by the roadside far from houses (near Leighton's graveyard).

I think I have found many new plants, and am surprised when I can reckon but one. A little distance from my ordinary walk and a little variety in the growth or luxuriance will produce this illusion. 

By the discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed. 

Amphicarpaea some time; pods seven eighths of an inch long. Mimvlus ringens four feet high, and chelone six feet high! 

Am frequently surprised to find how imperfectly water-plants are known. Even good shore botanists are out of their element on the water. I would suggest to young botanists to get not only a botany-box but a boat, and know the water-plants not so much from the shore as from the water side. 

White morning-glory up the Assabet. 

I find the dog's-bane (Apocynum androsoemifolium) bark not the nearly so strong as that of the A. cannabinum.

Amaranthus hypochondriacus, how long?

Minott says that the meadow-grass will be good for nothing after the late overflow, when it goes down. The water has steamed the grass. I see the rue all turned yellow by it prematurely. 

Bathing at Merrick's old place, am surprised to find how swift the current. Raise the river two feet above summer level and let it be running off, and you can hardly swim against it. It has fallen about fifteen inches from the height. 

My plants in press are in a sad condition; mildew has invaded them during the late damp weather, even those that were nearly dry. I find more and other plants than I counted on. Very bad weather of late for pressing plants. Give me the dry heat of July. Even growing leaves out of doors are spotted with fungi now, much more than mine in press.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 16, 1856

Diplopappus linariifolius, apparently several days. See July 29, 1852 ("That common rigid narrow-leaved faint-purplish aster in dry woods by shrub oak path, Aster linariifolius of Bigelow, but it is not savory leaved. I do not find it in Gray."); December 26, 1855 (“Weeds in the fields and the wood-paths are the most interesting. Here are asters, savory-leaved, whose flat imbricated calyxes, three quarters of an inch over, are surmounted and inclosed in a perfectly transparent icebutton, like a glass knob, through which you see the reflections of the brown calyx.”); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Savory-leaved aster

Am surprised to find the cassia so obvious and abundant. See August 11, 1856 ("Mr. Bradford . . .gives me a sprig of Cassia Marilandica, wild senna, found by Minot Pratt just below Leighton's by the road side.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Wild Senna

Though I find only one new plant (the cassia), yet old acquaintances grow so rankly, and the spearmint intoxicates me so, that I am bewildered, as it were by a variety of new things. An infinite novelty. See August 8, 1852 ("No man ever makes a discovery, even an observation of the least importance, but he is advertised of the fact by a joy that surprises him"); September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, perhaps wading."); February 4, 1858 ("It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery."); November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality, and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it, and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”) See also January 27, 1857 ("The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them, or the discoverers of them, whether a sharper perception and curiosity in them led to the discovery or the greater novelty more inspired their report.")

A little distance from my ordinary walk . . . will produce this illusion. By the discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed. See February 9, 1852("A man goes to the end of his garden, inverts his head, and does not know his own cottage. The novelty is in us, and it is also in nature."); May 31, 1853 ("The fact that a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw. . . may be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive . . . The boundaries of the actual are no more fixed and rigid than the elasticity of our imaginations"); December 11, 1855 ("It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and  significance.”)

Raise the river two feet above summer level and let it be running off, and you can hardly swim against it. See note to August 16, 1860 ("River about ten and a half inches above summer level")


August 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 16

And the spearmint

so intoxicates me that

I am bewildered –

 an infinite novelty 

only one new plant.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I am bewildered

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

 

tinyurl.com/HDTwildsenna