Saw Ktaadn from a hill.

September 24

Saturday. 

Saw Ktaadn from a hill about two miles northwest of Bangor on the road to Pushaw. It is about eighty miles from Bangor. This was the nearest point from which we made out to see it. 

In the afternoon, walked up the Kenduskieg. 

White golden-rod, fall dandelion, hog peanut, Solidago arguta and altissima, Aster macrophyllus (?), and red maple (?). 

Witch-hazel well out. 

Epilobium coloratum, Solidago squarrosa, S. latifolia, Aster cordifolius (?). 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 24, 1853

Saw Ktaadn from a hill about two miles northwest of Bangor See September 21, 1853 ("Rained all day, which prevented the view of Ktaadn, otherwise to be seen in very many places . . . Reached Bangor at dark.")

The Kenduskeag Stream flows from the northwest into the Penobscot at Bangor.

White golden-rod . . . Solidago arguta and altissima . . . Solidago squarrosa, S. latifolia. See September 24, 1854 ("Solidago nemorosa . . . generally withered or dim"); September 24, 1856 ("Early S. stricta, done some time. . . S. altissima, much past prime . . . S. bicolor . . . in prime . . S. lalifolia, in prime..") See also  July 31, 1857 ("The commonest solidago on the East Branch, Solidago squarrosa."): August 12, 1852 ("Solidago bicolor, white goldenrod, apparently in good season"); August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are, lst, stricta. . .; 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last); 3d, altissima, though commonly only a part of its panicles; 4th, nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom. Then there is the odora, 5th, out some time, but not common; and, 6th, the bicolor, just begun in some places"); August 24, 1853 ("The altissima . . . is just beginning to be abundant. Its tops a foot or more broad, with numerous recurved racemes on every side, with yellow and yellowing triangular points. It is the most conspicuous of all . . . Solidago latifolia not yet."); August 31, 1853 (" The Solidago altissima is now the prevailing . . . goldenrod, in low grounds where the swamp has been cleared. It occupies acres, densely rising as high as your head"); September 1, 1856 ("Solidago stricta, still very abundant, though probably a little past prime. S. gigantea, say in prime. S. nemoralis, not quite in prime, but very abundant. S. altissima, perhaps in prime. S. odora, in prime, or maybe a little past. . . .S. bicolor, not quite in prime, but common . . .S. latifolia, not yet at all.");  September 6, 1856 ("Solidago arguta very common, apparently in prime"); September 15, 1856 ("Early Solidago stricta (that is, arguta) done "); September 12, 1859 ("The golden-rod on the top and the slope of the hill are the Solidago nemoralis, at the base the taller S. altissima. ); September 16, 1857 ("Solidago latifolia in prime at Botrychium Swamp.");  September 21, 1856 ("Solidago altissima past prime . . .[On top of Cliff, behind the big stump] is a great place for white goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees.");  October 2, 1856 ("Solidago bicolor considerably past prime"); October 6, 1858 ("Solidago latifolia in bloom still, but always sparingly."); October 8, 1856 ("S. latifolia, far gone."); October 11, 1856 ("The white goldenrod is still common here, and covered with bees."); October 20, 1852 ("Tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed. ");September 19, 1857("Solidago arguta variety done, say a week or more.") [Solidago arguta in old usage, or (misapplied) solidago stricta, is solidago juncea (early goldenrod) ~Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts; see September 11, 1857 ("My old S. stricta (early form) must be S. Arguta var. juncea.")]

I sometimes remember something which I have told another as worth telling to myself.

August 23. 

Cooler than ever. Some must have fires, and I close my window. 

P. M. —Britton’s camp via Hubbard’s Close. 

The rhexia in the field west of Clintonia Swamp makes a great show now, though a little past prime. 

I go through the swamp, wading through the luxuriant cinnamon fern, which has complete possession of the swamp floor. Its great fronds, curving this way and that, remind me [of] a tropical vegetation. They are as high as my head and about a foot wide; may stand higher than my head without being stretched out. They grow in tufts of a dozen, so close that their fronds interlace and form one green waving mass. There in the swamp cellar under the maples. A forest of maples rises from a forest of ferns. My clothes are covered with the pale-brown wool which I have rubbed off their stems.

See an abundance of pine-sap on the right of Pine-sap Path. It is almost all erect, some eight to nine inches high, and all effete there. Some stems are reddish. It lifts the leaves with it like the Indian-pipe, but is not so delicate as that. The Indian-pipe is still pushing up.

Everywhere in woods and swamps I am already reminded of the fall. 

I see the spotted sarsaparilla leaves and brakes, and, in swamps, the withering and blackened skunk-cabbage and hellebore, and, by the river, the already blackening pontederias and pipes. 

There is no plateau on which Nature rests at midsummer, but she instantly commences the descent to winter.

I see a golden-crowned thrush, but it is silent except a chip; sitting low on a twig near the main stem of a tree, in these deep woods.

High blackberries now in their prime, their great racemes of shining black fruit, mixed with red and green, bent over amid the sweet-fern and sumach on sunny hill sides, or growing more rankly with larger fruit by rich roadsides and in lower ground. 

The chewink note of a chewink (not common), also a cuckoo’s note.

Smooth sumach berries all turned crimson. This fruit is now erect spear-heads, rising from the ample dark-green, unspotted leaves, pointing in various directions. 

I see dense patches of the pearly everlasting, maintaining their ground in the midst of dense green sweet-fern, a striking contrast of snow-white and green. 

Viburnum nudum berries, apparently but a day or two. 

Epilobium angustifolium is abundantly shedding its downy seed, — wands of white and pink. 

Emerson says that he and Agassiz and Company broke some dozens of ale-bottles, one after another, with their bullets, in the Adirondack country, using them for marks! It sounds rather Cockneyish. He says that he shot a peetweet for Agassiz, and this, I think he said, was the first game he ever bagged. He carried a double-barrelled gun, —rifle and shotgun, — which he bought for the purpose, which he says received much commendation, — all parties thought it a very pretty piece. 

Think of Emerson shooting a peetweet (with shot) for Agassiz, and cracking an ale-bottle (after emptying it) with his rifle at six rods! They cut several pounds of lead out of the tree. It is just what Mike Saunders, the merchant’s clerk, did when he was there.  

The writer needs the suggestion and correction that a correspondent or companion is. I sometimes remember something which I have told another as worth telling to myself, i.e. writing in my Journal. 

Channing, thinking of walks and life in the country, says, “You don’t want to discover anything new, but to discover something old,” i.e. be reminded that such things still are.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 23, 1858

There is no plateau on which Nature rests at midsummer, but she instantly commences the descent to winter. See August 5, 1854 ("It is one long acclivity from winter to midsummer and another long declivity from midsummer to winter."); August 19, 1851("Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it.”); August 23. 1853 ("Observing the blackness of the foliage, especially between me and the light, I am reminded that it begins in the spring, the dewy dawn of the year, with a silvery hoary downiness, changing to a yellowish or light green, — the saffron-robed morn, — then to a pure, spotless, glossy green with light under sides reflecting the light, — the forenoon, — and now the dark green, or early afternoon, when shadows begin to increase, and next it will turn yellow or red, — the sunset sky, — and finally sere brown and black, when the night of the year sets in.")

High blackberries now in their prime. See August 23, 1856 ("Now for high blackberries"); and note to August 31, 1857 ("An abundance of fine high blackberries behind Britton's old camp on the Lincoln road, now in their prime there, which have been overlooked. Is it not our richest fruit?")

I see dense patches of the pearly everlasting, maintaining their ground in the midst of dense green sweet-fern, a striking contrast of snow-white and green. See August 23, 1856 ("I see a bed of Antennaria margaritacea, now in its prime, by the railroad, and very handsome. . . . dense pearly masses of flowers covered with bees and butterflies")

In the toad pool by Cyrus Hubbard’s corner.

August 21

P. M. — A-berrying to Conantum. 

I notice hardhacks clothing their stems now with their erected leaves, showing the whitish under sides. A pleasing evidence of the advancing season. 

How yellow that kind of hedgehog sedge (Cyperus phymatodea), in the toad pool by Cyrus Hubbard’s corner. 

I still see the patch of epilobium on Bee Tree Hill as plainly as ever, though only the pink seed-vessels and stems are left.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 21, 1858

The patch of epilobium on Bee Tree Hill. See July 28, 1858  ("Saw a pinkish patch on side-hill west of Baker Farm, which turned out to be epilobium.")

Bee Tree Hill. See September 30, 1852 ("After we got to the Baker Farm, to one of the open fields nearest to the tree I had marked, . . . We then took the path to Clematis Brook on the north of Mt. Misery,. . . and so repaired at once to the tree I had found, a hemlock two feet and a half in diameter on a side-hill a rod from the[Fair Haven] pond.")

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

A pinkish patch on side-hill.

July 28. 

July 28, 2018

P. M.—-To Conantum. 

From wall corner saw a pinkish patch on side-hill west of Baker Farm, which turned out to be epilobium, a rod across. Through the glass it was as fine as a moss, but with the naked eye it might have been mistaken for a dead pine bough. This pink flower was distinguished perhaps three quarters of a mile.

Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. 

The under sides of maples are very bright and conspicuous nowadays as you walk, also of the curled panicled andromeda leaves. Some grape leaves, also, are blown up.

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

A pinkish patch on side-hill  west of Baker Farm, which turned out to be epilobium, distinguished perhaps three quarters of a mile. See July 28, 1852 ("Epilobium coloratum, roadside just this side of Dennis's"); August 21, 1858 ("I still see the patch of epilobium on Bee Tree Hill as plainly as ever, though only the pink seed-vessels and stems are left"): See also July 24, 1857 (“Great fields of epilobium or fire-weed, a mass of color.); July 31, 1856 (“Dense fields of the great epilobium now in its prime, like soldiers in the meadow, resounding with the hum of bees.”)

Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. See June 12, 1854 (“As he flies off, he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives ”); August 6, 1858 ("The kingfisher is seen hovering steadily over one spot, or hurrying away with a small fish in his mouth, sounding his alarum nevertheless.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Kingfisher

July 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 28

From wall corner saw 

a pinkish patch on side-hill 

west of Baker Farm

turned out to be 

epilobium

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 ©  2009-2024

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")

A bobolink's egg.

June 24. 

Very hot weather. 

Aralia hispida at Cliffs. 

Epilobium, how long? 

Storrow Higginson gives me a bobolink's egg. It is a regular oval, seven eighths by five eighths inch. It is a dark cream-color with pretty large spots of brown, sometimes blackish, chiefly at the large end, and very faint, more internal pale-purplish spots equally dispersed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 24, 1858

A bobolink's egg. It is a dark cream-color with pretty large spots of brown, sometimes blackish. See June 12, 1857 (“ At Natural History Rooms. — The egg found on ground in R. W. E.'s garden some weeks since cannot be the bobolink's, for that is about as big as a bay-wing's but more slender, dusky-white, with numerous brown and black blotches.”)

A rumor of geese.

January 28. 

White pine. Red pine.
January 28, 2018

Minott has a sharp ear for the note of any migrating bird. Though confined to his dooryard by the rheumatism, he commonly hears them sooner than the widest rambler. Maybe he listens all day for them, or they come and sing over his house, — report themselves to him and receive their season ticket. He is never at fault. If he says he heard such a bird, though sitting by his chimney-side, you may depend on it. He can swear through glass. He has not spoiled his ears by attending lectures and caucuses, etc. 

The other day the rumor went that a flock of geese had been seen flying north over Concord, midwinter as it was, by the almanac. I traced it to Minott, and yet I was compelled to doubt. I had it directly that he had heard them within a week. I saw him, – I made haste to him. His reputation was at stake. He said that he stood in his shed, – it was one of the late warm, muggy, April-like mornings, – when he heard one short but distinct honk of a goose. He went into the house, he took his cane, he exerted himself, or that sound imparted strength to him. Lame as he was, he went up on to the hill, – he had not done it for a year, — that he might hear all around. He saw nothing, but he heard the note again. It came from over the brook. It was a wild goose, he was sure of it. 

And hence the rumor spread and grew. He thought that the back of the winter was broken, — if it had any this year, — but he feared such a winter would kill him too. 

I was silent; I reflected; I drew into my mind all its members, like the tortoise; I abandoned myself to unseen guides. Suddenly the truth flashed on me, and I remembered that within a week I had heard of a box at the tavern, which had come by railroad express, containing three wild geese and directed to his neighbor over the brook. The-April-like morning had excited one so that he honked; and Minott's reputation acquired new lustre. 

He has a propensity to tell stories which you have no ears to hear, which you cut short and return unfinished upon him. 

I notice much cotton-like down attached to the long curled-up seed-vessels of the Epilobium angustifolium, such as I think I have seen used in some birds' nests. 

It has been spitting a little snow to-day, and we were uncertain whether it would increase or turn to rain. Coming through the village at 11 P.M., the sky is completely overcast, and the (perhaps thin) clouds are very distinctly pink or reddish, somewhat as if reflecting a distant fire, but this phenomenon is universal all round and overhead. I suspect there is a red aurora borealis behind.

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

Minott has a sharp ear for the note of any migrating bird. See September 2, 1856 ("Minott, whose mind runs on them [pigeons] so much, but whose age and infirmities confine him to his wood-shed on the hillside, saw a small flock a fortnight ago.. . . One man's mind running on pigeons, will sit thus in the midst of a village, many of whose inhabitants never see nor dream of a pigeon except in the pot, and where even naturalists do not observe, and he, looking out with expectation and faith from morning till night, will surely see them.")

The other day the rumor went that a flock of geese had been seen flying north over Concord, See February 21, 1855 ("Can it be true, as is said, that geese have gone over Boston, probably yesterday? It is in the newspapers")

He thought that the back of the winter was broken, but he feared such a winter would kill him too. See  March 5, 1854 ("Channing, talking with Minott the other day about his health, said, " I suppose you 'd like to die now." "No," said Minott, "I 've toughed it through the winter, and I want to stay and hear the bluebirds once more.");  January 8, 1857 ("Minott says he has lived where he now does as much as sixty years. He has not been up in town for three years, on account of his rheumatism ");  February 20, 1857 ("Minott always sits in the corner behind the door, close to the stove, with commonly the cat by his side, often in his lap. Often he sits with his hat on"); September 30, 1857 ("Minott says he is seventy-five years old."); and note to October 4, 1851 ("Minott is, perhaps, the most poetical farmer — who most realizes to me the poetry of the farmer's life — that I know . . . He loves to walk in a swamp in windy weather and hear the wind groan through the pines.");

Pine-needles, just fallen, now make a thick carpet.

October 14, 2016

October 14. 

A sudden change in the weather after remarkably warm and pleasant weather. Rained in the night, and finger-cold to-day. Your hands instinctively find their way to your pockets. 

Leaves are fast falling, and they are already past their brightness, perhaps earlier than usual on account of wet. [No.]

P. M. — To Hubbard's Close. 

Huckleberries perfectly plump and fresh on the often bare bushes (always (else) red-leaved). The bare gray twigs begin to show, the leaves fast falling. 

The maples are nearly bare. The leaves of red maples, still bright, strew the ground, often crimson-spotted on a yellow ground, just like some apples. 

Pine-needles, just fallen, now make a thick carpet. 

October 14, 2018

Going to Laurel Glen in the hollow beyond Deep Cut Woods, I see now withered erechthites and epilobium standing thick on the bare hillside, where the hemlocks were cut, exposing the earth, though no fire has been there. They seem to require only that the earth shall be laid bare for them. 

In Laurel Glen, an aspen sprout which has grown seven to eight feet high, its lower and larger leaves, already fallen and blackened (a dark slate), about. One green and perfect leaf measures ten inches in length and nine broad, heart-shaped. Others, less perfect, are half an inch or more larger each way. 

Any flowers seen now may be called late ones. I see perfectly fresh succory, not to speak of yarrow, a Viola ovata, some Polygala sanguinea, autumnal dandelion, tansy, etc., etc.

 H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 14, 1856

Leaves are fast falling . . . perhaps earlier than usual on account of wet. See October 14, 1860 ("This year, on account of the very severe frosts, the trees change and fall early, or fall before fairly changing.")

Pine-needles, just fallen, now make a thick carpet. See October 12, 1852 ("A new carpet of pine leaves is forming in the woods. . . ."); October 13, 1855 ("A thick carpet of white pine needles lies now lightly, half an inch or more in thickness, above the dark-reddish ones of last year."); October 15 1858 ("White pines are in the midst of their fall");  October 16, 1855 ("How evenly the freshly fallen pine-needles are spread on the ground! quite like a carpet.") See also The October Pine Fall

Any flowers seen now may be called late ones . . . See October 20, 1852 (" . . .tansy . . ."); October 16, 1853 ("Viola ovata out."); 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. . . .The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression."); October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us."); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.").

I see a deep full river on which vessels may float.

August 12. 

11 a. m. — To Hill. 

The Hypericum mutilum is well out at this hour. 

The river is now at a standstill, some three feet above its usual level. The pickerel-weed is all covered, and lilies, and much of the button-bush and mikania. It is as great an accident as can befall these flowers. It is novel to behold this great, full tide in which you perceive some current by the eddies, in which no snarl of weeds is seen. So different from that Potamogeton River, where you caught a crab at every stroke of the oar, and farmers drove their hay-carts across. Instead of watery gleaming fields of potamogetons in which the boatman was entangled, and drifting vallisneria on which the dragon-flies alighted, I see a deep full river on which vessels may float, and I feel at a distance from terra firma when on its bosom. 

P. M. — To Moore's Swamp.

Gerardia purpurea, two or three days. 

The mulgedium in that swamp is very abundant and a very stately plant, so erect and soldier-like, in large companies, rising above all else, with its very regular long, sharp, elliptic head and bluish-white flowers. 

Again I examine that very strict solidago, which perhaps I must call wand-stemmed. Perhaps it is only a swamp variety of S. stricta, yet the leaves are thicker and darker(?)-green, and the upper commonly broader, often elliptic, pointed, less recurved and not wavy. Stem and head is now commonly much more strict and branches more erect, and racemes less one-sided, but in larger and maturer ones they are at length recurving and forming a pyramid like S. stricta. Rays are fewer and broader, five or six; stem reddish, with apparently more branchlets or leafets in axils.

Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus (which may have opened near August 1st, say only a week). Only the first flowers out. At edge of the last clearing south of spring. I cannot identify it. It has very short but not margined petioles; leaves narrower than yesterday's, and rough beneath as well as above. The outer scales of involucre a little the longest; but I think this of little importance, for the involucre of the H. divaricatus is very variable, hardly two alike; rays about ten. In some respects it is most like H. strumosus, but not downy beneath. The bruised leaves of these helianthuses are rather fragrant. 

It is thick, smoky, dog-day weather again. 

Bradford speaks of the dog's-tooth violet as a plant which disappears early. 

The Aster patens is very handsome by the side of Moore's Swamp on the bank, — large flowers, more or less purplish or violet, each commonly (four or five) at the end of a long peduncle, three to six inches long, at right angles with the stem, giving it an open look. 

Snake-head, or chelone. 

On the edge of the ditch opposite the spring, Epilobium coloratum, and also what I must call E. palustre of Willdenow and Pursh and Eaton. It is smooth or smoothish, leaves somewhat toothed or subdenticulate, peduncle one inch long, flowers white. 

The most interesting domes I behold are not those of Oriental temples and palaces, but of the toadstools. On this knoll in the swamp they are little pyramids of Cheops or Cholula, which also stand on the plain, very delicately shaded off. They have burst their brown tunics as they expanded, leaving only a clear-brown apex, and on every side these swelling roofs or domes are patched and shingled with the fragments, delicately shaded off thus into every tint of brown to the edge. As if this creation of a night would thus imitate the weather-stains of centuries. Toads' temples. So charming is gradation! 

Gerardia pedicularia, how long? 

What a wilderness of weeds is Moore's Swamp now! Tall rough goldenrods, erechthites, poke, Aster Radula, dogwood, etc., etc. It looks as if the potatoes which grew there would be poisonous. 

An arrowhead in Peter's Path. How many times I have found an arrowhead by that path, as if that had been an Indian trail! Perchance it was, for some of the paths we travel are much older than we think, especially some which the colored race in our midst still use, for they are nearest to the Indian trails.

The Emerson children say that Aralia nudicaulis berries are good to eat. The leaves of Sericocarpus conyzoides are fragrant when bruised. Black cherries ripe. 

Saw the primrose open at sundown. The corolla burst part way open and unfolded rapidly; the sepals flew back with a smart spring. In a minute or two the corolla was opened flat and seemed to rejoice in the cool, serene light and air. 

Lespedeza capitata, not long. The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.

The late rains have tried the roofs severely. Tenants have complained to their landlords, and now I see carpenters setting up their staging and preparing to shingle on various sides.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 12, 1856

Gerardia purpurea, two or three days. See August 20, 1852 ("The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass.")
Saw the primrose open at sundown. . . . seemed to rejoice in the cool, serene light and air. See July 5, 1856 ("The large evening-primrose below the foot of our garden does not open till some time between 6.30 and 8 P. M. or sundown. . . . freshly out in the cool of the evening at sundown, as if enjoying the serenity of the hour.”)

Snake-head, or chelone: The name of the genus Chelone comes from the Greek word meaning a tortoise, from the resemblance of the corolla to a tortoise-head. Snake-head. Turtle-head. Turtle-bloom. Shell flower. Not the snake-head arethusa of July 7, 1856.  See August 1, 1852  ("Chelone glabra [white turtlehead] just out.”)

Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus . . . See August 11, 1856 ("A new sunflower at Wheeler's Bank, . . ., which I will call the tall rough sunflower; opened say August 1st”); August 1, 1852 ("The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats; also Helianthus annuus, common sunflower.”); August 13, 1858 ("The broad-leaved helianthus on bank opposite Assabet Spring is not nearly out, though the H. divaricatus was abundantly out on the 11th.")  GoBotany lists:

Helianthus annuus, common sunflower
Helianthus divaricatus, woodland sunflower
Helianthus strumosus, pale-leaved sunflower

What a wilderness of weeds is Moore's Swamp now! See August 31, 1853 (The rank growth of flowers (commonly called weeds) in this swamp now impresses me like a harvest of flowers. . . .One would think that all the poison that is in the earth and air must be extracted out of them by this rank vegetation.")

Thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years.

July 31. 

Thursday. P. M. — To Decodon Pond. 

Erigeron Canadensis, some time. Alisma mostly gone to seed. Thoroughwort, several days. Penthorum, a good while. 

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. 

For a morning or two I have noticed dense crowds of little tender whitish parasol toadstools, one inch or more in diameter, and two inches high or more, with simple plaited wheels, about the pump platform; first fruit of this dog-day weather. 

Measured a Rudbeckia hirta flower; more than three inches and three eighths in diameter. 

As I am going across to Bear Garden Hill, I see much white Polygala sanguinea with the red in A. Wheeler's meadow (next to Potter's). 

Also much of the Bartonia tenella, which has been out some days at least, five rods from ditch, and three from Potter's fence. 

Went through Potter's Aster Radula swamp this dog-day afternoon. As I make my way amid rank weeds still wet with the dew, the air filled with a decaying musty scent and the z-ing of small locusts, I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years.

Some late rue leaves on a broken twig have turned all a uniform clear purple. 

How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill ! The berries are large, for no drought has shrunk them. They are very abundant this year to compensate for the want of them the last. The children should grow rich if they can get eight cents a quart for blackberries, as they do. 

Again I am attracted by the hoary, as it were misty morning light on the base of the upper leaves of the velvety Pycnanthemum incanum. It is the most interesting of this genus here. 

The smooth sumach is pretty generally crimson-berried on the Knoll, and its lower leaves are scarlet-tipped (though there are some blossoms yet), but the Rhus copallina there is not yet out. 

See dense fields of the great epilobium now in its prime, like soldiers in the meadow, resounding with the hum of bees. The butterflies are seen on the pearly everlasting, etc., etc. 

Hieracium paniculatum by Gerardia quercifolia path in woods under Cliffs, two or three days. 

Elodea two and a half feet high, how long? The flowers at 3 p. m. nearly shut, cloudy as it is. Yet the next day, later, I saw some open, I think. 

Another short-tailed shrew dead in the wood-path.

Near Well Meadow, hear the distant scream of a hawk, apparently anxious about her young, and soon a large apparent hen-hawk (?) comes and alights on the very top of the highest pine there, within gunshot, and utters its angry scream. This a sound of the season when they probably are taking their first (?) flights. 

See yellow Bethlehem-star still. 

As I look out through the woods westward there, I see, sleeping and gleaming through the stagnant, misty, glaucous dog-day air, i. e. blue mist, the smooth silvery surface of Fair Haven Pond. There is a singular charm about it in this setting. The surface has a dull, gleaming polish on it, though draped in this glaucous mist. 

The Solidago gigantea (?), three-ribbed, out a long time at Walden shore by railroad, more perfectly out than any solidago I have seen. I will call this S. gigantea, yet it has a yellowish-green stem, slightly pubescent above, and leaves slightly rough to touch above, rays small, about fifteen.

Mine must be the Aster Radula (if any) of Gray, yet the scales of the involucre are not appressed, but rather sub-squamose, nor is it rare. Pursh describes it, or the Radula, as white-flowered, and mentions several closely allied species. 

Wade through the northernmost Andromeda Pond. Decodon not nearly out there. Do I not see some kind of sparrow about the shore, with yellow beneath? Mountain cranberries apparently full grown, many at least.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 31, 1856

Trichostema has now for some time been springing up in the fields, giving out its aromatic scent. See Jujy 31, 1854 ("Blue-curls."); July 11, 1853 ("The aromatic trichostema now springing up"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue-Curls

This dog-day afternoon . . .  the air filled with a decaying musty scent and the z-ing of small locusts. See July 31, 1855 ("Our dog-days seem to be turned to a rainy season.") July 31, 1859 ("It is emphatically one of the dog-days. A dense fog, not clearing off till we are far on our way, and the clouds (which did not let in any sun all day) were the dog-day fog and mist, which threatened no rain. A muggy but comfortable day."); July 31, 1860 ("Decidedly dog-days, and a strong musty scent, not to be wondered at after the copious rains and the heat of yesterday.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Locust, Dogdayish Days and August 2, 1859 ("That fine z-ing of locusts in the grass which I have heard for three or four days is an August sound.")

Thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years. See August 7, 1854 ("I am not so much reminded of former years, as of existence prior to years.”) See also Farewell, my friend

Another short-tailed shrew dead in the wood-path. See July 12, 1856 (“I have found them thus three or four times before.”)

July 31.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 31

Thoughts of autumn and

the memory of past years

occupy my mind.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Thoughts of autumn

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 ©  2009-2024

At the railroad meadow this side the Brooks Crossing.

July 5. 

A. M. — To Loring’s Pond. 

July 5. 

Pink-colored yarrow.

Epilobium coloratum, a day or more. 

Young partridges (with the old bird), as big as robins, make haste into the woods from off the railroad. 

Plucked some large luscious purple pyrus berries. Lactuca some days out. 

Borrowed Witherell’s boat and paddled over Loring’s Pond. A kingbird’s nest in fork of a buttonbush five feet high on shore (not saddled on); three young just hatched and one egg. 

Much of this pond is now very shallow and muddy and crowded with pads, etc. I can hardly push through them. Yet I can see no more white lily pads shaped as that appears to have been which I found here a few weeks since. 

Many pickerel dart away from amidst the pads, and in one place I see one or two great snap-turtles. 

I notice two varieties (?), perhaps, of Asclepias Cornuti now out, one on the railroad meadow this side the Brooks Crossing, the other beyond the first mile-post above. The last has broader leaves and blunter and more decidedly mucronate, and pedicels and peduncles quite downy, the former little more than twice the length of the petals. The other has narrower and more pointed leaves, peduncles and pedicels but little downy comparatively, the latter more than three times the length of the petals and not so numerous as in the other. Vide their pods, if spiny, by and by. 

The Spergularia rubra was not open in the morning when I passed up, at 8 or 9 A. M., but was opened when I returned at noon, but closed again at 5 P. M.

The notes of barn swallows, perhaps with their young, are particularly loud now and almost metallic, like that of a mackerel gull. 

The large evening-primrose below the foot of our garden does not open till some time between 6.30 and 8 P. M. or sundown. It was not open when I went to bathe, but freshly out in the cool of the evening at sun down, as if enjoying the serenity of the hour.

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


Young partridges (with the old bird), as big as robins, make haste . . . See July 5, 1857 ("Partridges big as quails."); June 26, 1857( See a pack of partridges as big as robins at least.); July 1, 1860 (I see young partridges not bigger than robins . . .”) and note to August 24, 1855 ("Scare up a pack of grouse."). Also  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge.

A kingbird’s nest in fork of a buttonbush five feet high. See July 9, 1859 ("See young kingbirds which have lately flown perched in a family on the willows, — the airy bird, lively, twittering"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

Pink-colored yarrow. See August 27, 1859 ("I often see yarrow with a delicate pink tint, very distinct from the common pure-white ones. ")

The dispersion of seeds

August 9

The OEnothera biennis along the railroad now. Do the cars disperse seeds?

The Trichostema dichotomum is quite beautiful now in the cool of the morning. 

The epilobium in the woods still. 

Now the earliest apples begin to be ripe, but none are so good to eat as some to smell. Some knurly apple which I pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 9, 1851

August 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 9

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

.

Shelter from a storm

August 9.

August 9, 2015
At a little distance we should see all the colors.

Tansy now in bloom and the fresh white clethra.

The Trichostema dichotomum is quite beautiful now in the cool of the morning.

The epilobium in the woods still.

Now the earliest apples begin to be ripe, but none are so good to eat as some to smell.

Among the pines and birches I hear the invisible locust.

As I am going to the pond to bathe, I see a black cloud in the northern horizon and hear the muttering of thunder, and make haste. Before I have bathed and dressed, the gusts which precede the tempest are heard roaring in the woods, and the first black, gusty clouds have reached my zenith. Hastening toward town, I meet the rain at the edge of the wood, and take refuge under the thickest leaves, where not a drop reaches me, and, at the end of half an hour, the renewed singing of the birds alone advertises me that the rain has ceased, and it is only the dripping from the leaves which I hear in the woods.

It is a splendid sunset, a celestial light on all the land, so that all people come to their doors and windows to look on the grass and leaves and buildings and the sky, as the sun’s rays shine through the cloud and the falling rain we are, in fact, in a rainbow. At a little distance we should see all the colors.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 9, 1851

The renewed singing of the birds alone advertises me that the rain has ceased, and it is only the dripping from the leaves which I hear in the woods.  See March 21, 1858 ("This first spring rain is very agreeable. I love to hear the pattering of the drops on my umbrella, and I love also the wet scent of the umbrella. ")April 4, 1853 ("A warm, dripping rain, heard on one's umbrella as on a snug roof, and on the leaves without, suggests comfort . . .We never feel so comfortable as when we are abroad in a storm . . .Our comfort is positive then. We are all compact, and our thoughts collected. We walk under the clouds and mists as under a roof."); July 17, 1852 ("This weather is rather favorable to thought. On all sides is heard a gentle dripping of the rain on the leaves, yet it is perfectly warm."); The dripping trees and wet falling ice will wet you through like rain in the woods. December 6, 1858 ("It is a lively sound, a busy tinkling, the incessant brattling and from time to time rushing, crashing sound of this falling ice, and trees suddenly erecting themselves when relieved of their loads. . . .Looking at a dripping tree between you and the sun, you may see here or there one or another rainbow color, a small brilliant point of light.")

We are, in fact, in a rainbow. See August 7, 1852 ("Sometimes we are completely within it, enveloped by it, and experience the realization of the child's wish")

Aug. 9. Saturday. Tansy now in bloom and the fresh white clethra. Among the pines and birches I hear the invisible locust. As I am going to the pond to bathe, I see a black cloud in the northern horizon and hear the muttering of thunder, and make haste. Before I have bathed and dressed, the gusts which precede the tempest are heard roaring in the woods, and the first black, gusty clouds have reached my zenith. Hastening toward town, I meet the rain at the edge of the wood, and take refuge under the thickest leaves, where not a drop reaches me, and, at the end of half an hour, the renewed singing of the birds alone advertises me that the rain has ceased, and it is only the dripping from the leaves which I hear in the woods.

It was a splendid sunset that day, a celestial light on all the land, so that all people went to their doors and windows to look on the grass and leaves and buildings and the sky, and it was equally glorious in whatever quarter you looked; a sort of fulgor as of stereotyped lightning filled the air. Of which this is my solution. We were in the westernmost edge of the shower at the moment the sun was setting, and its rays shone through the cloud and the falling rain. We were, in fact, in a rainbow and it was here its arch rested on the earth. At a little distance we should have seen all the colors.

 The Enothera biennis along the railroad now. Do the cars disperse seeds ? The Trichostema dichotomum is quite beautiful now in the cool of the morning. The epilobium in the woods still. Now the earliest apples begin to be ripe, but none are so good to eat as some to smell. Some knurly apple which I pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona.

August 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 9

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