It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings.

September 22. 

To the Three Friends' Hill over Bear Hill. 

Yesterday and to-day the stronger winds of autumn have begun to blow, and the telegraph harp has sounded loudly.

I heard it especially in the Deep Cut this afternoon, the tone varying with the tension of different parts of the wire. The sound proceeds from near the posts, where the vibration is apparently more rapid.

I put my ear to one of the posts, and it seemed to me as if every pore of the wood was filled with music, labored with the strain, as if every fibre was affected and being seasoned or timed, rearranged according to a new and more harmonious law. Every swell and change or inflection of tone pervaded and seemed to proceed from the wood, the divine tree or wood, as if its very substance was transmuted.

What a recipe for preserving wood, perchance, — to keep it from rotting, — to fill its pores with music ! How this wild tree from the forest, stripped of its bark and set up here, rejoices to transmit this music! When no music proceeds from the wire, on applying my ear I hear the hum within the entrails of the wood, — the oracular tree acquiring, accumulating, the prophetic fury.

The resounding wood! how much the ancients would have made of it! To have a harp on so great a scale, girdling the very earth, and played on by the winds of every latitude and longitude, and that harp were, as it were, the manifest blessing of heaven on a work of man'! Shall we not add a tenth Muse to the immortal Nine?

And that the invention thus divinely honored and distinguished — on which the Muse has condescended to smile is this magic medium of communication for mankind!

To read that the ancients stretched a wire round the earth, attaching it to the trees of the forest, by which they sent messages by one named Electricity, father of Lightning and Magnetism, swifter far than Mercury, the stern commands of war and news of peace, and that the winds caused this wire to vibrate so that it emitted a harp-like and æolian music in all the lands through which it passed, as if to express the satisfaction of the gods in this invention. Yet this is fact, and we have yet attributed the invention to no god.

I am astonished to see how brown and sere the groundsel or "fire-weed” on hillside by Heywood's Meadow, which has been touched by frost, already is, — as if it had died long months ago, or a fire had run through it. It is a very tender plant. 

Standing on Bear Hill in Lincoln.

                                                September 22, 2017

The black birches ( I think they are ), now yellow, on the south side of Flint's Pond, on the hillside, look like flames. The chestnut trees are brownish-yellow as well as green. 

It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings, through which all things are distinctly seen and the fields look as smooth as velvet.

The fragrance of grapes is on the breeze and the red drooping barberries sparkle amid the leaves.

From the hill on the south side of the pond, the forests have a singularly rounded and bowery look, clothing the hills quite down to the water's edge and leaving no shore; the ponds are like drops of dew amid and partly covering the leaves. So the great globe is luxuriously crowded without margin.

The Utricularia cornuta, or horned utricularia, on the sandy pond-shore, not affected by the frost.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 22, 1851

Three Friends Hill. See September 12, 1851 ("To the Three Friends' Hill beyond Flint's Pond. . . I go to Flint's Pond for the sake of the mountain view from the hill beyond, looking over Concord.")

How brown and sere the groundsel or "fire-weed” on hillside by Heywood's Meadow, which has been touched by frost, See August 23, 1856 ("On R. W. E.'s hillside by railroad, burnt over by the engine in the spring, the erechthites has shot up abundantly, very tall and straight, some six or seven feet high."); August 26, 1856 ("Also erechthites as abundant and rank in many places there as if it had been burnt over! So it does not necessarily imply fire."); August 27, 1851 ("Hawkweed groundsel (Senecio hieracifolius) (fireweed)"); August 30, 1859 ("The erechthites down has begun to fly."); September 9, 1852 ("The groundsel down is in the air."); September 20, 1851 ("On Monday of the present week water was frozen in a pail under the pump. . . .All tender herbs are flat in gardens and meadow"); September 20, 1852 ("The groundsel and hieracium down is in the air"); September 21, 1856 ("Was not the fireweed seed sown by the wind last fall, blown into the woods, where there was a lull which caused it to settle? Perhaps it is fitted to escape or resist fire. The wind which the fire creates may, perchance, lift it again out of harm's way."); October 2, 1857 ("The erechthites down (fire-weed) is conspicuous in sprout-lands of late, since its leaves were killed."); October 16, 1859 ("The flowers are at the mercy of the frosts. Places where erechthites grows, more or less bare, in sprout- lands, look quite black and white (black withered leaves and white down) and wintry")

It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings.. See

 

These bracing fine days

when frosts come to ripen the

year, the days, like fruit.

September 22, 1854

See also September 20, 1851 ("This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - cool and cloudless, bright days, . . . preceded by frosty mornings." ); October 10, 1857 ("The most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this.") November 11, 1853 ("Bracing cold, and exhilarating sunlight on russet and frosty fields “) December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year, on account of the wholesome bracing coolness and clearness.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

The fragrance of grapes is on the breeze. See September 20, 1851 ("This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - - cool and cloudless, bright days, filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes, preceded by frosty mornings.")

The cross-leaved polygala, has a very sweet but intermittent fragrance, as of checkerberry and mayflowers combined

 




August 27. 

I see the volumes of smoke-not quite the blaze — from burning brush, as I suppose, far in the western horizon.  I believe it is at this season of the year chiefly that you see this sight.  It is always a question with some whether it is not a fire in the woods, or some building. It is an interesting feature in the scenery at this season.

The farmer's simple enterprises.

The vervain which I examined by the railroad the other day has still a quarter of an inch to the top of its spikes.

Hawkweed groundsel (Senecio hieracifolius) (fireweed).

Rubus sempervirens, evergreen raspberry, the small low blackberry, is now in fruit.

The Medeola Virginica, cucumber-root, the whorl-leaved plant, is now in green fruit.

Polygala cruciata, cross-leaved polygala, in the meadow between Trillium Woods and railroad. This is rare and new to me. It has a very sweet, but as it were intermittent, fragrance, as of checkerberry and mayflowers combined. The handsome calyx-leaves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 27, 1851

The vervain which I examined by the railroad the other day has still a quarter of an inch to the top of its spikes. See August 20, 1851 ("The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly reached the summit of their spikes");  August 21, 1851 ("they are all within about half an inch of the top of the spikes");  August 23, 1851 ("The Verbena hastata at the pond has reached the top of its spike,. . . only one or two flowers are adhering."); August 22, 1859 ("T he circles of the blue vervain flowers, now risen near to the top, show how far advanced the season") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Blue Vervain

Rubus sempervirens, evergreen raspberry, the small low blackberry, is now in fruit.  See August 24, 1859 ("  The small sempervirens blackberry in prime in one place.");  September 7, 1858 ("J. Farmer calls those Rubus sempervirens berries, now abundant, “snake blackberries.”")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

Polygala cruciata, cross-leaved polygala, has  a very sweet but intermittent  fragrance, as of checkerberry and mayflowers combined.  See  July 10, 1854 ("Polygala cruciata, Hubbard's Close, two or three days "); July 13, 1852 ("The Polygala sanguinea and P. cruciata in Blister's meadow, both numerous and well out. The last has a fugacious (?) spicy scent, in which, methinks, I detect the scent of nutmegs. Afterward I find that it is the lower part of the stem and root which is most highly scented, like checkerberry, and not fugacious"); September 13, 1851("The cross-leaved polygala emits its fragrance as if at will. You are quite sure you smelled it and are ravished with its sweet fragrance, but now it has no smell. You must not hold it too near, but hold it on all sides and at all distances, and there will perchance be wafted to you sooner or later a very sweet and penetrating fragrance. What it is like you cannot surely tell, for you do not enjoy it long enough nor in volume enough to compare it. It is very likely that you will not discover any fragrance while you are rudely smelling at it; you can only remember that you once perceived it. Both this and the caducous polygala are now some what faded.") See also August 13, 1856 ("The root of the Polygala verticillata also has the checkerberry odor.") and   A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Polygala

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.");

Sitting on a rock east of Trillium Woods

October 2

P. M. – To Hubbard's Close and Swamp. 

Veronica scutellaria still. 

Sitting on a rock east of Trillium Woods, I perceive that, generally speaking, it is only the edge or pediment of the woods that shows the bright autumnal tints yet (while the superstructure is green), the birches, very young oaks and hickories, huckleberry bushes, blackberries, etc., etc., that stand around the edges, though here and there some taller maple flames upward amid the masses of green, or some other riper and mellower tree. 

The chief incidents in Minott's life must be more distinct and interesting to him now than immediately after they occurred, for he has recalled and related them so often that they are stereotyped in his mind. Never having travelled far from his hillside, he does not suspect himself, but tells his stories with fidelity and gusto to the minutest details, — as much as Herodotus his histories. 

The leaves of some trees merely wither, turn brown, and drop off at this season, without any conspicuous flush of beauty, while others now first attain to the climax of their beauty. There is a more or less general reddening of the leaves at this season, down to the cinquefoil and mouse-ear, sorrel and strawberry under our feet. White oaks are still quite green, with a few distinct red leaves intermixed. A great many red maples are merely yellow; more, scarlet, in some cases deepening to crimson.

Looking at the pines of Trillium Woods, I see that the pitch pines have generally a rounded head, composed of countless distinct small rounded masses of foliage, the tops of their plumes, while the white pines are more smooth, or only flaky. 

Since the cooler weather many crickets are seen clustered on warm banks and by sunny wall-sides. 

It is evident from their droppings that the wood chucks (?) eat many of them these evenings. 

I go through Stow's Wood and up Laurel Glen eastward. The chickadees of late have winter ways, flocking after you. 

This changing of the leaves — their brighter tints — must have to do with cold, for it begins in the low meadows and in frosty hollows in the woods. There is where you must look as yet for the bright tints. I see the sprouts at the base of an old red oak for four or five feet upward, investing its trunk, all clear bright red, while all above is green. The shrub oak leaves around are more yellow or scarlet than the red. At the bottom of this hollow, the young walnut leaves have just been killed by the frosts while still green, and generally the hazel leaves also, but not the oaks, cherries, etc., etc. Many little maples in those coldest places have already dropped all their leaves. Generally in low ground many maple and birch and locust leaves have fallen. Grape leaves were killed and crisped by the last frost. 

The fringed gentian at Hubbard's Close has been out some time, and most of it already withered. 

In the clintonia swamp I see where some animal has been getting the seeds of the skunk-cabbage out of their pericarp. 

You may take a dry walk there for a quarter of a mile along the base of the hill through this open swamp, where there is no underwood, all the way in a field of cinnamon fern four or five feet high and level, brushing against its light fronds, which offer now no serious obstacle. They are now generally imbrowned or crisp. In the more open swamp beyond, these ferns, recently killed by the frost and exposed to the sun, fill the air with a very strong sour scent, as if your nose [were] over a hogshead of vinegar. When I strip off a handful of the frond I find it is the cinnamon fern. I perceive it afterward in different parts of the town. 

The erechthites down (fire-weed) is conspicuous in sprout-lands of late, since its leaves were killed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 2, 1857


Minott tells his stories with fidelity and gusto to the minutest details. See February 29, 1856 ("I willingly listen to the stories he has told me half a dozen times already.“)

The chickadees of late have winter ways, flocking after you .See October 15, 1856 (“The chickadees are hopping near on the hemlock above. They resume their winter ways before the winter comes.”); October 23, 1852 ("The chickadees flit along, following me inquisitively a few rods with lisping, tinkling note, — flit within a few feet of me from curiosity, head downward on the pines.");December 1, 1853 (T hey are our most honest and innocent little bird, drawing yet nearer to us as the winter advances. . .”); .December 3, 1856 ("Six weeks ago I noticed the advent of chickadees and their winter habits. As you walk along a wood-side, a restless little flock of them, whose notes you hear at a distance, will seem to say, "Oh, there he goes! Let's pay our respects to him." And they will flit after and close to you, and naively peck at the nearest twig to you, as if they were minding their own business all the while without any reference to you.”)

The fringed gentian at Hubbard's Close has been out some time, and most of it already withered. See October 2, 1853 ("The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively.")

In the more open swamp beyond, these ferns, recently killed by the frost and exposed to the sun, fill the air with a very strong sour scent.  See October 2, 1859 (" I perceive in various places, in low ground, this afternoon, the sour scent of cinnamon ferns decaying. It is an agreeable phenomenon, reminding me of the season and of past years") A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

How unexplored still are the realms of nature -- what we know and have seen is always an insignificant portion.

July 24. 

Friday. 

As we paddled along, we saw many peetweets, also the common iris or blue flag, along the rocky shore, and here and afterwards great fields of epilobium or fire-weed, a mass of color. . . . 

P. said that Bematinichtik meant high land generally and no particular height. . . .

Near this island, or rather some miles southwest of it, on the mainland, where we stopped to stretch our legs and look at the vegetation, I measured a canoe birch, five and a half feet in circumference at two and a half from the ground. . . . 

I was disappointed to find my clothes under my india-rubber coat as completely wetted by perspiration as they could have been by rain, and that this would always be the consequence of working in such a garment, at least in warm weather. . . . 

We looked down on the unpretending buildings and grounds of the Kineo House, as on a little flat map, oblong-square, at our feet. . . . 

It [the phosphorescent wood] suggested to me how unexplored still are the realms of nature, that what we know and have seen is always an insignificant portion. We may any day take a walk as strange as Dante's imaginary one to L' Inferno or Paradiso.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 24, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("About four o'clock the next morning (July 24), though it was quite cloudy, accompanied by the landlord to the water's edge, in the twilight, we launched our canoe from a rock on the Moosehead Lake. . . . Think of our little eggshell of a canoe tossing across that great lake, a mere black speck to the eagle soaring above it! . . . [We] were soon partly under the lee of the mountain, about a mile north of the Kineo House, having paddled about twenty miles. It was now about noon. . . . The clouds breaking away a little, we had a glorious wild view, as we ascended, of the broad lake with its fluctuating surface and numerous forest-clad islands, extending beyond our sight both north and south, and the boundless forest undulating away from its shores on every side . . . From the summit of the precipice which forms the southern and eastern sides of this mountain peninsula, and is its most remarkable feature, being described as five or six hundred feet high, we looked, and probably might have jumped, down to the water, or to the seemingly dwarfish trees on the narrow neck of land which connects it with the main. It is a dangerous place to try the steadiness of your nerves. . . . Getting up some time after midnight to collect the scattered brands together, while my companions were sound asleep, I observed, partly in the fire, which had ceased to blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of light . . . phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see. . . .I did not regret my not having seen this before, since I now saw it under circumstances so favorable. I was in just the frame of mind to see something wonderful, and this was a phenomenon adequate to my circumstances and expectation, and it put me on the alert to see more like it. . . . I let science slide, and rejoiced in that light as if it had been a fellow creature. . . . It suggested to me that there was something to be seen if one had eyes. It made a believer of me more than before.")

The common iris or blue flag. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Flag Iris (Versicolor)

Phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see. See August 8, 1857 ("Speaking with Dr. Reynolds about the phosphorescence which I saw in Maine, etc., etc., he said that he had seen the will-o'-the-wisp, a small blue flame, like burning alcohol, a few inches in diameter, over a bog, which moved when the bog was shaken.")

What we know and have seen is always an insignificant portion. We may any day take a walk as strange as Dante's imaginary one . . . See March 29, 1853 (“ a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to...appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.”); June 14, 1853(". . . that favorable frame of mind described by De Quincey, open to great impressions”); 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. .”); September 2, 1856 and note ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, . . . My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.") and note to July 2, 1857 ("We find only the world we look for.")

The advantage of going abroad

September 21 

September 21, 2015

P. M. — To Cliffs. 

Asclepias Cornuti discounting. The seeded parachutes which I release soon come to earth, but probably if they waited for a stronger wind to release them they would be carried far. 

Solidago nemoralis mostly done. 

Aster undulatus in prime, in the dry woods just beyond Hayden's, large slanting, pyramidal panicles of some lilac-tinged, others quite white, flowers, size of Diplopappus linariifolius. 

Solidago altissima past prime. 

Prinos berries. 

I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year. 

A. dumosus past prime. 

Am surprised to see on top of Cliffs, where Wheeler burned in the spring and had cut rye, by a large rock, some very large perfectly fresh Corydalis glauca, still well in bloom as well as gone to seed, two and a half feet high and five eighths of an inch thick at base. There are also many large tufts of its glaucous leaves on the black burnt ground which have not come to flower, amid the rye stubble. The bumblebees are sucking its flowers. 

Beside the young oak and the sprouts, poke-weed, erechthites, and this corydalis even are common there. How far is this due to the fire, aside from the clearing? 

Was not the fireweed seed sown by the wind last fall, blown into the woods, where there was a lull which caused it to settle? Perhaps it is fitted to escape or resist fire. The wind which the fire creates may, perchance, lift it again out of harm's way.

The Asclepias obtusifolia is turned yellow. I see its often perfectly upright slender pod five inches long. It soon bursts in my chamber and shows its beautiful straw- colored lining. A fairy-like casket, shaped like a canoe, with its closely packed imbricated brown seeds, with their yet compressed silvery parachutes like finest unsoiled silk in the right position above them, ready to be wafted some dry and breezy day to their destined places. 

On top of Cliff, behind the big stump, a yellow white goldenrod, var. concolor, which Gray refers to Pennsylvania, apparently with the common. That is a great place for white goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees. 

Scare up turtle doves in the stubble. Uva-ursi berries quite ripe. 

Find, for first time in Concord, Solanum nigrum, berries apparently just ripe, by a rock northwest of corydalis. Thus I have within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable [you] to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange. 

It is a warm and very hazy day, with wreaths of mist in horizon.

See, in the cow-killer on railroad, a small mountain-ash naturalized!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1856

Asclepias Cornuti discounting . . . if they waited for a stronger wind to release them they would be carried far. See September 10, 1860 ("If you sit at an open attic window almost anywhere, about the 20th of September, you will see many a milkweed down go sailing by on a level with you, though commonly it has lost its freight, — notwithstanding that you may not know of any of these plants growing in your neighborhood.");   October 8, 1851 ("The milkweed seeds must be carried far, for it is only when a strong wind is blowing that they are loosened from their pods.") 

Milkweed seeds loosen

only when a strong wind blows –

so they carry far.

 October 8, 1851 

October 19, 1856 ("The Asclepias Cornuti pods are now apparently in the midst of discounting.");   October 23, 1852 ("The milkweed (Syriaca) now rapidly discounting . . .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"); October 25, 1858 ("Near the end of the causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting."); November 20, 1858 ("The common milkweed (Asclepias Cornuti) and some thistles still discounting.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Milkweed.

Late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery . . . See September 21, 1854 (" Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher."); September 19, 1858 ("Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chewink  (Rufous-sided Towhee)

White goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees. See August 12, 1852 ("Solidago bicolor, white goldenrod, apparently in good season");  August 21, 1856 ("The bicolor, just begun in some places. "); October 2, 1856 ("Solidago bicolor considerably past prime"); Octpber 8, 1856 ("S. bicolor in some places, are common still");   October 11, 1856 ("The white goldenrod is still common here, and covered with bees.");  October 26, 1852 ("The blue-stemmed and white goldenrod apparently survive till winter. – push up and blossom anew.") 

Within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. See September 10, 1856 ("Descending the steep south end of this hill [Fall Mountain near Bellow Falls], I saw an apparent Corydalis glauca . . .  By the railroad below, the Solanum nigrum, with white flowers but yet green fruit.") See also September 22, 1859 ("The Solanum nigrum, which is rare in Concord, with many flowers and green fruit.")

Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange. See March 11, 1856 ("Only that travelling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better"); August 6, 1851 ("It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate."); September 19, 1853 ("[the Maine woods] I looked very narrowly at the vegetation as we glided along close to the shore. . . that I might see what was primitive about our Concord River."); September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood . . . prepared for strange things.");  September 19, 1856 ("Am surprised to find the Polygonum Pennsylvanicum abundant, by the roadside near the bank. First saw it the other day at Brattleboro."); 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.")

September 21. See A Book of the Seasons: September 21

It is a warm and 

very hazy day – wreaths of 

mist in horizon.

You first detect your

own plants when abroad – because 

looking for the strange.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The advantage of going abroad

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

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