At entrance to pokelogan near Assabet Bathing-Place.

July 11.

Rain last night.

The aromatic trichostema now springing up. 

Trichostema dichotomum
 (blue-curl)

Gnaphalium uliginosum now. 

Gnaphalium uliginosum
 (Marsh Cudweed)

Hydrocotyle, some days.

Agrimony, also, some days.

Button-bush.

Centaurea nigra, some time, Union Turnpike, against E.Wood's, low ground, and Ludwigia alternifolia, apparently just begun, at entrance to pokelogan near Assabet Bathing-Place.

The small crypta already in fruit.

I find in the river, especially near the Assabet Bathing Place, a ranunculus some of whose leaves are capillary, others merely wedge-cut or divided.

Is it not the R. aquatilis? But I see no flowers. [I think it is the R. Purshii.]


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 11, 1853

The aromatic trichostema[blue-curls]now springing up. See July 31, 1856 ("Trichostema has now for some time been springing up in the fields, giving out its aromatic scent when bruised, and I see one ready to open.");August 9, 1851 ("The Trichostema dichotomum is quite beautiful now in the cool of the morning."); August 11, 1853 ("Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle.”); August 13, 1856 (“Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime? — The polygala roots, blue-curls, wormwood, pennyroyal, . . . etc., etc. Does not the season require this tonic?“);  August 17, 1851 ("The Trichostema dichotomum, — not only its bright blue flower above the sand, but its strong wormwood scent which belongs to the season, -- feed my spirit.");

Gnaphalium uliginosum now. See June 24, 1853 ("The Gnaphalium uliginosum seems to be almost in blossom."); July 17, 1852 ("Gnaphalium uliginosum by the roadside,"); July 24, 1856 ("Some Gnaphalium uliginosum going to seed; how long?")

I think it is the R. Purshii. See June 6, 1857 ('The Ranunculus Purshii is in some places abundantly out now and quite showy. It must be our largest ranunculus (flower).”); July 2, 1853 ("The Ranunculus Purshiï is very rarely seen now.”)

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

Botanizing the Assabet near House-leek Rock

August 5

August 5, 2016

A. M. — On river. 

Mikania a day or two. Polygonum amphibium in water, slightly hairy, well out. Polygonum orientate, how long? 

P. M. — To house-leek via Assabet Bath. 

Trichostema, maybe several days in some places. Nightshade berries, how long? 

When I crossed the new stone bridge a great water adder lay on it, full five feet long and nearly as big round as my arm. It turned and ran along, with a coarse grating rustle, to the end of the railing, and then dropped deliberately head foremost from the last abutment, full nine feet, to the gravelly ground, amid the osiers, making a loud sound when he struck; at once took to the water, and showed his head amid the pads. I also saw another similar one at House-leek Rock. 

Centaurea well out, how long? 

Aster dumosus, apparently a day or two, with its large conspicuous flower-buds at the end of the branchlets and linear-spatulate involucral scales. 

At haunted house site, as at Bittern Cliff grain-field, I see much apparent Euphorbia maculata semi-erect in the grass. Eupatorium pubescens, by Pear Path. 

I now find an abundance of the clustered rubus ripe. It is not large and has a clammy, subacid taste, but some are very sweet. Clusters generally drooping.

Hypericum mutilum, dwart john’s-wort,
August 2, 2019

Now, at 4 p. m. this dog-day, cloudy weather, the Hypericum mutilum is abundantly open in the Solidago lanceolata path, sometimes fifteen inches high, while the Canadense and angulatum are shut.

S. lanceolata, some days. S. nemoralis, two or three days. 

Choke-cherries near House-leek Rock begin to be ripe, though still red. They are scarcely edible, but their beauty atones for it. See those handsome racemes of ten or twelve cherries each, dark glossy red, semi- transparent. You love them not the less because they are not quite palatable. Along fences or hedgerows. 

Sempervivium
(houseleek ~ hen & chickens)

To my surprise one house-leek (apparently Sempervivum tectorum of Dewey) has shot up twenty-two inches high and is apparently nearly out, though the petals are erect, not spread. The stem is clothed with the same thick leaves, only smaller and lessening up ward and forming a column about one and a half inches in diameter (with the leaves). The top is a broad raceme (?), about eight inches wide and two thirds as long, of eleven long, spreading, and recurved branches, lined with flowers on the upper side only. These consist of twelve to thirteen lanceolate calyx-segments and as many still longer dull-purple petals and about twenty pistils within and short stamens around them. It is a strange but rather stately cactus-like plant. 

The children call the pretty clusters of radical leaves hen and chickens. In this case the radical leaves are withered, and a fusiform root sustains the flower. This one is not on the bare rock, but lower amid the huckleberry bushes. 

At the Assabet stone bridge, apparently freshly in flower, — though it may have been out nearly as long as the androscemifolium, — apparently the Apocynum cannabinum var. hypericifolium (?). The tallest is four feet high. The flowers very small (hardly more than an eighth of an inch in diameter), the segments of the corolla not revolute but nearly erect. There are twenty to thirty flowers at end of a branch. The divisions of the calyx are longer than in the common, long ovate. Yet it differs from Gray's hypericifolium in having flowers rose-streaked within like the common, the cymes not shorter than the leaves, and the tube of the corolla rather longer than the divisions of the calyx. The leaves are hardly more downy or heart-shaped below than the common. Hypericifolium is a separate species in Pursh and some others. And the branches are less ascending than the common, making an angle of about 62° with the stem (the four lower), while three of the lower of a common one make an angle of 44°.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 5, 1856

Trichostema, maybe several days in some places. See July 31, 1856  ("Trichostema has now for some time been springing up in the fields, giving out its aromatic scent when bruised, and I see one ready to open.");  August 17, 1851 ("The Trichostema dichotomum, — not only its bright blue flower above the sand, but its strong wormwood scent which belongs to the season, –– feed my spirit, endear the earth to me, make me value myself and rejoice.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue-Curls

Now, at 4 p. m . .  .The Hypericum mutilum is abundantly open . . . sometimes fifteen inches high, while the Canadense and angulatum are shut.  See August 12, 1856 ("11 a. m. . . .  The Hypericum mutilum is well out at this hour.");  August 17, 1856 ("Hypericum Canadense well out at 2 p. m"); .August 19, 1856 ("I see Hypericum Canadense and mutilum abundantly open at 3 p. m");  August 27, 1856  ("Hypericum Canadense and mutilum now pretty generally open at 4 P.M., thus late in the season, it being more moist and cooler."). See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

A great water adder . . . full five feet long and nearly as big round as my arm. See July 23, 1856 ("water adder killed on the 15th and left hanging on a twig"); July 15, 1856 ("It was about three feet long, but large round in proportion, with about one hundred and forty abdominal plates and a long, slender tail.)

Aster dumosus, apparently a day or two, with its large conspicuous flower-buds. See August 10, 1856  ("Aster dumosus and pennyroyal out; how long? ");   August 24, 1853 ("The dumosus is the prevailing white one, very abundant.") See also   A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Asters in August

Choke-cherries. . . scarcely edible, but their beauty atones for it. See August 5, 1858 ("Choke-berries, fair to the eye but scarcely palatable, hang far above your head, weighing down the bushes."); See also September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man . . . it is strange that we do not devote an hour in the year to gathering those which are beautiful to the eye. It behooves me to go a-berrying in this sense once a year at least.”)

Apparently the Apocynum cannabinum var. hypericifolium (?). The tallest is four feet high. See August 7, 1856 ("Hemp, perhaps a week.");  August 13, 1856 ("I stripped off a shred of Indian hemp bark and could not break it. It is as strong as anything of the kind I know. ") August 16, 1856 (" I find the dog's-bane (Apocynum androsoemifolium) bark not the nearly so strong as that of the A. cannabinum.");  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

August 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 5

Now at 4 p. m.

this dog-day cloudy weather

dwarf johnswort open.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Near House-leek Rock

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-560805