A man at work on the Ledum Pool, draining it.

October 23

P. M. — To Ledum Swamp. 

One tells me that he saw geese go over Wayland the 17th.

Large wild cherries are half fallen or more, the few remaining leaves yellowish. Choke-cherries are bare; how long?

Amelanchier bare. 

Viburnum nudum half fallen or more; when wet and in shade, a light crimson. 

Hardhack, in low ground, where it has not withered too soon, inclines to a very light scarlet. 

Sweet-gale is not fallen, but a very dull yellowish and scarlet. 

You see in woods many black (?) oak sprouts, forming low bushes or clumps of green and dark crimson. (C. says they are handsome, like a mahonia.) 

The meadow-sweet is yellowish and yellow-scarlet. 

In Ledum Swamp the white azalea is a dirty brown scarlet, half fallen, or more. 

Panicled andromeda reddish-brown and half fallen. 

Some young high blueberry, or sprouts, never are a deeper or brighter crimson-scarlet than now. 

Wild holly fallen. 

Even the sphagnum has turned brownish-red on the exposed surfaces, in the swamp, looking like the at length blushing pellicle of the ripe globe there. 

The ledum is in the midst of its change, rather conspicuous, yellow and light-scarlet and falling. I detect but few Andromeda Polifolia and Kalmia glaucaleaves turned a light red or scarlet. 

The spruce is changed and falling, but is brown and inconspicuous.

A man at work on the Ledum Pool, draining it, says that, when they had ditched about six feet deep, or to the bottom, near the edge of this swamp, they came to old flags, and he thought that the whole swamp was once a pond and the flags grew by the edge of it. Thought the mud was twenty feet deep near the pool, and that he had found three growths of spruce, one above another, there. He had dug up a hard-pan with iron in it (as he thought) under a part of this swamp, and in what he cast out sorrel came up and grew, very rankly indeed.

I notice some late rue turned a very clear light yellow. 

I see some rose leaves (the early smooth) turned a handsome clear yellow, — and some (the R. Carolina) equally clear and handsome scarlet or dark red. This is the rule with it. 

Elder is a dirty greenish yellow and apparently mostly fallen. 

Beach plum is still green with some dull red leaves, but apparently hardly any fallen. 

Butternuts are bare. 

Mountain-ash of both kinds either withered or bare.

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

Geese go over Wayland the 17th. See October 24, 1858 ("A northeast storm, though not much rainfalls to-day, but a fine driving mizzle or “drisk.” This, as usual, brings the geese, and at 2.30 P. M. I see two flocks go over. . . .This weather warns of the approach of winter, and this wind speeds them on their way.")");    October 27, 1857 ("I hear that Sammy Hoar saw geese go over to-day. The fall (strictly speaking) is approaching an end in this probably annual northeast storm"); November 13, 1858 ("A large flock of geese go over just before night. "); November 8 , 1857 ("About 10 A.M. a long flock of geese are going over from northeast to southwest"); November 13, 1855 ("Seventy or eighty geese, in three harrows successively smaller, flying southwest—pretty well west—over the house. A completely overcast, occasionally drizzling forenoon. "); November 13, 1858 ("A large flock of geese go over just before night. ");November 18, 1854 (" Sixty geese go over the Great Fields, in one waving line, broken from time to time by their crowding on each other and vainly endeavoring to form into a harrow, honking all the while."); November 20, 1853 ("Methinks the geese are wont to go south just before a storm, and, in the spring, to go north just after one, say at the end of a long April storm.");   November 30, 1857 ("The air is full of geese. I saw five flocks within an hour, about 10 A. M., containing from thirty to fifty each, and afterward two more flocks, making in all from two hundred and fifty to three hundred at least"); December 1, 1857 ("I hear of two more flocks of geese going over to-day."); December 6, 1855 ("10 P. M. — Hear geese going over.")

The ledum is in the midst of its change, rather conspicuous. I detect but few Andromeda Polifolia and Kalmia glauca. See February 4, 1858 ("Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole, growing with the Andromeda calyculata, Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, etc.")

The spruce is changed and falling, but is brown and inconspicuous. See February 12, 1858 ("About the ledum pond-hole there is an abundance of that abnormal growth of the spruce. . . , which have an impoverished look, altogether forming a broom-like mass, very much like a heath. ")

A man at work on the Ledum Pool, draining it. See November 8, 1857 ("I have no doubt that a good farmer, who, of course, loves his work, takes exactly the same kind of pleasure in draining a swamp, seeing the water flow out in his newly cut ditch, that a child does in its mud dikes and water-wheels. Both alike love to play with the natural forces.")

Surprised to see frog spawn

September 1. 

P. M. — To Botrychium Swamp. 

Aster miser not long, but the leaves turned red. 

At the pool by the oaks behind Pratt’s, I see the Myriophyllum ambiguum still, and going to seed, greening the surface of the water. 

The Leersia oryzoides, false rice, or rice cut-grass, is abundant and in prime on the shore there. Also find it on the shore of Merrick’s pasture. It has very rough sheaths. 

Am surprised to see frog(?) spawn just laid, neither in spherical masses nor in a string, but flatted out thin on the surface, some eight or nine inches wide, — a small black spawn, white one side, as usual. 
I saw one or two R. fontinalis on the shore. Was it toad-spawn? 

Ranunculus repens

Ranunculus repens in bloom — as if begun again ? — at the violet wood-sorrel spring. 

Chelone glabra well out, how long? In the same meadow, Aster longifolius well out, not long. That meadow is white with the Eriophorum polystachyon, apparently var. augustifolium (?). Vide it pressed. 

On dry land, common, but apparently getting stale, Panicum clandestinum. 

Dangle-berries now ready for picking. 

At Botrychium Swamp, Nabalus altissimus. Of twenty plants (all in shade) only one out, apparently two or three days. Elsewhere,in open land, N. Fraseri, apparently several days, say five; but not a very rough one. 

Ledum Telephium, how long? 

In the evening, by the roadside, near R. W. E.’s gate, find a glow-worm of the common kind. Of two men, Dr. Bartlett and Charles Bowen, neither had ever seen it!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 1, 1858


Rice cut-grass. Thoreau’s notes it also  on August 28, 1854 and August 1, 1856 at Great Meadows, on August 24, 1859 at the roadside of Corner road by the brook, on August 26, 1859 in prime at Potter’s holes, and on August 26, 1860 in the old pad ditch by the path beyond Hubbard’s Grove. - vascular plants of concord

Ranunculus repens in bloom — as if begun again ? — at the violet wood-sorrel spring. See August 10, 1853 (“The Ranunculus repens numerously out about Britton's Spring.”)

Aster longifolius well out. See September 1, 1856 ("A. longifolius, hardly one seen yet.”)

At Botrychium Swamp, Nabalus altissimus. Of twenty plants (all in shade) only one out.  See September 8, 1856 ("Along this path observed the Nabalus altissimus, flowers in a long panicle of axillary and terminal branches, small-flowered, now in prime.”)

Find a glow-worm of the common kind. Of two men, Dr. Bartlett and Charles Bowen, neither had ever seen it! See January 15, 1858 ("Dr. Durkee . . .has not seen the common glow-worm . . . Showed to Agassiz, Gould, and Jackson, and it was new to them.”)

A song sparrow's nest in a little spruce

June 13. 

Louring all day. 

P. M. – To Ledum Swamp. 

Lambkill, maybe one day. 

Strawberries. 

In the great apple tree front of the Miles house I hear young pigeon woodpeckers. 

The ledum is apparently past prime. 

The Kalmia glauca and the Andromeda Polifolia are done, the kalmia just done. 

The ledum has grown three or four inches (as well as the andromeda). It has a rather agreeable fragrance, between turpentine and strawberries. It is rather strong and penetrating, and some times reminds me of the peculiar scent of a bee. The young leaves, bruised and touched to the nose, even make it smart.

It is the young and expanding ledum leaves which are so fragrant. There is a yellow fungus common on its leaves, and a black one on the andromeda. 

The Vaccinium Oxycoccus grows here and is abundantly out; some days certainly. 

I hear and see the parti-colored warbler, blue yellow-backed, here on the spruce trees. It probably breeds here. 

Also, within three feet of the edge of the pond-hole, where I can hardly stand in india-rubber shoes without the water flowing over them, a large ant-hill swarming with ants, – though not on the surface because of the mizzling rain. 

One of the prevailing front-rank plants here, standing in the sphagnum and water, is the elodea. 

I see a song sparrow's nest here in a little spruce just by the mouth of the ditch. It rests on the thick branches fifteen inches from the ground, firmly made of coarse sedge without, lined with finer, and then a little hair, small within, — a very thick, firm, and portable nest, an inverted cone; — four eggs. They build them in a peculiar manner in these sphagnous swamps, elevated apparently on account of water and of different materials. Some of the eggs have quite a blue ground. 

Go to Conantum end. 

The Rubus frondosus will not bloom apparently for a day or two, though the villosus is apparently in prime there. 

I hear the peculiar notes of young bluebirds that have flown. 

Arenaria lateriflora, how long? 

The Scheuchzeria palustris, now in flower and going to seed, grows at Ledum Pool, as at Gowing's Swamp. 

See now in meadows, for the most part going to seed, Carex scoparia, with its string of oval beads; and C. lupulina, with its inflated perigynia; also what I take to be C. stipata, with a dense, coarse, somewhat sharp triangular mass of spikelets; also C. stellulata, with a string of little star-like burs. The delicate, pendulous, slender-peduncled C. debilis.

Catbirds hatched.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1858

Lambkill, maybe one day. See June 9, 1855 ("Lambkill out."); June 10, 1855 ("The Kalmia glauca is done before the lambkill is begun here"); June 13, 1854 ("How beautiful the solid cylinders of the lamb-kill now just before sunset, — small ten-sided, rosy-crimson basins, about two inches above the recurved, drooping dry capsules of last year");


In the great apple tree front of the Miles house I hear young pigeon woodpeckers. See May 17, 1858 ("Measured the large apple tree in front of the Charles Miles house. It is nine feet and ten inches in circumference ");  June 13, 1855 ("C. finds a pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs, about six feet from the ground."); June 10, 1856 ("In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered. . . .")

A song sparrow's nest here in a little spruce just by the mouth of the ditch. See  April 30, 1858 ("I find a Fringilla melodia nest with five eggs. Part, at least, must have been laid before the snow of the 27th, but it is perfectly sheltered under the shelving turf and grass on the brink of a ditch."); June 14, 1855 ("A song sparrow’s nest in ditch bank under Clamshell, of coarse grass lined with fine, and five eggs nearly hatched and a peculiar dark end to them."); July 12, 1857 ("A song sparrow's nest in a small clump of alder, two feet from ground! Three or four eggs.")

See Carex now in meadows. See June 11, 1855 ("Carex cephalophora (?) on Heywood’s Peak. That fine, dry, wiry wild grass in hollows in woods and sprout-lands, never mown, is apparently the C. Pennsylvanica, or early sedge. ")

I hear the peculiar notes of young bluebirds that have flown. See. June 13, 1852 (" I hear the feeble plaintive note of young bluebirds, just trying their wings or getting used to them")

June 13. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 13

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

A new season has arrived: heat, fireflies; mosquitoes; trumping bullfrogs

June 7

P. M. — To Walden. 

Warm weather has suddenly come, beginning yesterday. To-day it is yet warmer, 87° at 3 P. M., compelling me to put on a thin coat, and I see that a new season has arrived.

June 7, 2018
 (Avesong)

June shadows are moving over waving grass-fields, the crickets chirp uninterruptedly, and I perceive the agreeable acid scent of high blueberry bushes in bloom. The trees having leaved out, you notice their rounded tops, suggesting shade. 

The nighthawk sparks and booms over arid hillsides and sprout-lands. 

It is evidence enough against crows and hawks and owls, proving their propensity to rob birds’ nests of eggs and young, that smaller birds pursue them so often. You do not need the testimony of so many farmers' boys when you can see and hear the small birds daily crying “Thief and murder” after these spoilers. 

What does it signify, the kingbird, black bird, swallow, etc., etc., pursuing a crow? They say plainly enough, “I know you of old, you villain; you want to devour my eggs or young. I have often caught you at it, and I’ll publish you now.” And probably the crow pursuing the fish hawk and eagle proves that the latter sometimes devour their young. 

The Salix tristis is now generally going or gone to seed.

Oxalis violacea in garden.

I see toads copulating and toad-spawn freshly laid in the Wyman meadow at Walden. 

Utricularia vulgaris out there. 

The water colored or dusted with the pollen of the pitch pine. 

As I was wading in this Wyman meadow, looking for bullfrog-spawn, I saw a hole at the bottom, where it was six or eight inches deep, by the side of a mass of mud and weeds which rose just to the surface three or four feet from the shore. It was about five inches in diameter, with some sand at the mouth, just like a musquash's hole. As I stood there within two feet, a pout put her head out, as if to see who was there, and directly came forth and disappeared under the target-weed; but as I stood perfectly still, waiting for the water which I had disturbed to settle about the hole, she circled round and round several times be tween me and the hole, cautiously, stealthily approaching the entrance but as often withdrawing, and at last mustered courage to enter it.

I then noticed another similar hole in the same mass, two or three feet from this. I thrust my arm into the first, running it in and downward about fifteen inches. It was a little more than a foot long and enlarged somewhat at the end, the bottom, also, being about a foot beneath the surface, — for it slanted downward, – but I felt nothing within; I only felt a pretty regular and rounded apartment with firm walls of weedy or fibrous mud. 

I then thrust my arm into the other hole, which was longer and deeper, but at first discovered nothing; but, trying again, I found that I had not reached the end, for it turned a little and descended more than I supposed. Here I felt a similar apartment or enlargement, some six inches in diameter horizontally but not quite so high nor nearly so wide at its throat.

 Here, to my surprise, I felt something soft, like a gelatinous mass of spawn, but, feeling a little further, felt the horns of a pout. I deliberately took hold of her by the head and lifted her out of the hole and the water, having run my arm in two thirds its length. She offered not the slightest resistance from first to last, even when I held her out of water before my face, and only darted away suddenly when I dropped her in the water. 

The entrance to her apartment was so narrow that she could hardly have escaped if I had tried to prevent her. Putting in my arm again, I felt, under where she had been, a flattish mass of ova, several inches in diameter, resting on the mud, and took out some. Feeling again in the first hole, I found as much more there. Though I had been stepping round and over the second nest for several minutes, I had not scared the pout.

 The ova of the first nest already contained white wiggling young. I saw no motion in the others. The ova in each case were dull-yellowish and the size of small buckshot. These nests did not communicate with each other and had no other outlet.

 Pouts, then, make their nests in shallow mud-holes or bays, in masses of weedy mud, or probably in the muddy bank; and the old pout hovers over the spawn or keeps guard at the entrance. Where do the Walden pouts breed when they have not access to this meadow?

 The first pout, whose eggs were most developed, was the largest and had some slight wounds on the back. The other may have been the male in the act of fertilizing the ova.

 I sit in my boat in the twilight by the edge of the river. Toads are now in full blast along the river. Some sit quite out at the edge of the pads, and hold up their heads so high when they ring, and make such a large bubble, that they look as if they would tumble over backward.

 Bullfrogs now are in full blast. I do not hear other frogs; their notes are probably drowned. I perceive that this generally is the rhythm of the bullfrog; er|er-r er-r-r| (growing fuller and fuller and more tremendous) and then doubling, er, er er, err er, er, er er, er, er and finally er, er, er, er er, er, er, er. Or I might write it oorar oorar oorar oorar-hah oorar-hah hah oorar hah hah hah.

Some of these great males are yellow or quite yellowish over the whole back. Are not the females oftenest white-throated?

 What lungs, what health, what terrenity (if not serenity) it suggests! 

At length I hear the faint stertoration of a Rana palustris (if not halecina).

Seeing a large head, with its prominent eyes, projecting above the middle of the river, I found it was a bullfrog coming across. It swam under water a  rod or two, and then came up to see where it was, or its way. It is thus they cross when sounds or sights attract them to more desirable shores. Probably they prefer the night for such excursions, for fear of large pickerel, etc.

 I thought its throat was not yellow nor baggy. Was it not the female attracted by the note of the male?

 Fireflies pretty numerous over the river, though we have had no thunder-showers of late.

 Mosquitoes quite troublesome here.

 The ledum is a very good plant to bloom in a pitcher, lasting a week or more.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 7, 1858


87° at 3 P. M and i see that a new season has arrived. . . .Fireflies pretty numerous over the river, though we have had no thunder-showers of late. Mosquitoes quite troublesome here. See  June 7, 1854   ([M]osquitoes are very troublesome in the woods . . .This muggy evening I see fireflies, the first I have seen"); See also June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th, viz.: -

• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.
• Hylodes cease to peep.
• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.
• Lightning-bugs first seen.
• Bullfrogs trump generally.
• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.
• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.
• Sleep with open window.
• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.")

See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies, winged sparks of fire!

The nighthawk sparks and booms over arid hillsides and sprout-lands. See June 7, 1853 ("Visit my nighthawk on her nest. . . . The sight of this creature sitting on its eggs impresses me with the venerableness of the globe.");  See also  May 25, 1852 ("First nighthawks squeak and boom")  and also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk

Oxalis violacea in garden. See June 7, 2057 ("Pratt has got the . . . Oxalis violacea, which he says began about last Sunday, or May 31st, larger and handsomer than the yellow, though it blossoms but sparingly.")

June 7. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 7

 June shadows moving

 over waving grass-fields, a 

new season arrived.

 

I sit in my boat

in the twilight by the

edge of the river.

At length I hear the 

faint stertoration of a 

Rana palustris

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A new season arrived

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-580607

The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood.

May 30. 

Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d; how long? 

I saw the Nuphar advena above water and yellow in Shrewsbury the 23d. 

P. M.–To hen-harrier's nest and to Ledum Swamp.

Edward Emerson shows me the nest which he and another discovered. It is in the midst of the low wood, sometimes inundated, just southwest of Hubbard's Bath, the island of wood in the meadow.

The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one of the flicker. 

The nest is in a more bushy or open place in this low wood, and consists of a large mass of sedge and stubble with a very few small twigs, as it were accidentally intermingled. It is about twenty inches in diameter and remarkably flat, the slight depression in the middle not exceeding three quarters of an inch. The whole opening amid the low bushes is not more than two feet in diameter. The thickness of it raises the surface about four inches above the ground. The inner and upper part is uniformly rather fine and pale-brown sedge. 

There are two dirty, or rather dirtied, white eggs left (of four that were), one of them one and seven tenths inches long, and not “spherical,” as Brewer says, but broad in proportion to length. [Another is one and seven eighths inches long by one and a half inches. Vide the last (which was addled).]

Ledum, one flower out, but perhaps if Pratt had not plucked some last Sunday it might have bloomed here yesterday? It is decidedly leafing also.

Andromeda Polifolia by the ditch well out, how long?

I perceive the turpentine scent of the ledum in the air as I walk through it. 

As I stand by the riverside some time after sundown, I see a light white mist rising here and there in wisps from the meadow, far and near, — less visible within a foot of me, — to the height of three or four or ten feet. It does not rise generally and evenly from every part of the meadow, but, as yet, over certain spots only, where there is some warm breath of the meadow turned into cloud.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal  May 30, 1858

Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d. See note to May 30, 1856 ("The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th.")

The nest is in the midst of the low wood, sometimes inundated, just southwest of Hubbard's Bath, the island of wood in the meadow. The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one of the flicker. See May 14, 1857 ("See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter-colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female, sailing low over J. Hosmer's sprout-land and screaming, apparently looking for frogs or the like. Or have they not a nest near? They hover very near me.");  See May 20, 1856 (“Two marsh hawks, male and female, flew about me a long time, screaming, the female largest, with ragged wing ,. . . they have, no doubt, a nest thereabouts. ”)

Ledum, one flower out, but perhaps if Pratt had not plucked some last Sunday it might have bloomed here yesterday. See February 4, 1858 ("Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole")

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

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

Another new plant anticipated. Naming Ledum Swamp.

February 4. 

P. M. – To C. Miles Swamp. 

Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole, growing with the Andromeda calyculata, Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, etc. 

The A. Polifolia is very abundant about the pond-hole, some of it very narrow-leaved and dark, even black, above, as if burnt. 

The ledum bears a general resemblance to the water andromeda, with its dark reddish-purplish, or rather mulberry, leaves, reflexed; but nearer it is distinguished by its coarseness, the perfect tent form of its upper leaves, and the large, conspicuous terminal roundish (strictly oval) red buds, nearly as big as the swamp pink's, but rounded. The woolly stem for a couple of inches beneath the bud is frequently bare and conspicuously club-shaped. The rust on the under sides of the leaves seems of a lighter color than that of Maine. The seed-vessels (which open at the base first) still hold on. 

This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. When I showed it to a teamster, he was sure that he had seen it often in the woods, but the sight of the woolly under side staggered him. 

There are many small spruce thereabouts, with small twigs and leaves, an abnormal growth, reminding one of strange species of evergreen from California, China, etc. 

I brought some home and had a cup of tea made, which, in spite of a slight piny or turpentine flavor, I thought unexpectedly good. 

An abundance of nesaea on the east edge of the pond-hole (call it Ledum Pond-hole); and is that a lysimachia mingled with it?

The ledum does not grow amid the maples, nor, indeed, does the A. Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, nor even the water andromeda abundantly. It bears no more shade than that of the spruce trees, which do not prevail over the above-named shrubbery. 

As usual with the finding of new plants, I had a presentiment that I should find the ledum in Concord. 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.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 4, 1858

Discover the Ledum latiforium ....The rust on the under sides of the leaves seems of a lighter color than that of Maine. See July 25, 1857 (“Here [at Kimeo], among others, were the . . . Oxalis Acetosella, still occasionally in flower; Labrador tea (Ledum latifolium), out of bloom; Kalmia glauca, etc., etc., close to the track. ”); August 24, 1857 (“We waded into Coos Swamp on the south side the turnpike [at Natick] to find the ledum, but did not succeed. ”); June 19, 1856 (“Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms. Among which noticed ...Ledum latifolium, from White Mountains, rather 'broader—leafed than mine from Maine.”)  ~~ Recently reclassified from the genus Ledum, labrador-tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum) is a diminutive shrub of cool, wet swamps, spruce forests, and muskeg. It is recognized by its clusters of tiny white flowers and its folded-under leaves with brown hairs on the undersides. This shrub is named Labrador-tea because its aromatic leaves were commonly brewed as a tea by northern native Americans. Moose browse the leaves and twigs. ~ Go Botany

The A. Polifolia is very abundant about the pond-hole, some of it very narrow-leaved and dark, even black, above, as if burnt. See February 12, 1858 ("There is, apparently, more of the Andromeda Polifolia in that swamp than anywhere else in Concord."); November 15,1857 ("At C. Miles Swamp [f]ind plenty of Andromeda Polifolia ... where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood”). See also July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom.): February 17, 1854 ("In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore.)

This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. See August 19, 1856 (“a careless observer would look through their thin flowery panicles without observing any flower at all.”)

There are many small spruce thereabouts, with small twigs and leaves, an abnormal growth, See November 15,1857 ("At C. Miles Swamp .. where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood”); February 12, 1858 ("About the ledum pond-hole there is an abundance of that abnormal growth of the spruce. . . , which have an impoverished look, altogether forming a broom-like mass, very much like a heath."); June 13, 1858 ("I see a song sparrow's nest here in a little spruce just by the mouth of the ditch."); August 8, 1858 ("The peculiar plants of [Ledum] swamp are, then, as I remember, these nine: spruce, Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, Ledum latifolium, Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, Platanthera blephari glottis, Scheuchzeria palustris, Eriophorum 'vaginatum.");' September 6, 1858 ("That swamp is a singularly wild place, without any natural outlet. I hear of a marsh hawk’s nest there this summer. I see great spiders there of an uncommon kind, whose webs —the main supporting line — stretch six feet in the clear from spruce to spruce, as high as my head, with a dense web of the usual form some fifteen inches in diameter beneath."); October 23, 1858 ("The spruce is changed and falling, but is brown and inconspicuous. A man at work on the Ledum Pool, draining it, says that. . . he had found three growths of spruce, one above another, there.")

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. See  July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. Within a week R. W. E. showed me a slip of this in a botany, as a great rarity which George Bradford brought from Watertown. I had long been interested in it by Linnaeus's account. I now find it in abundance.”); January 9, 1855 (“Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots very much like the Andromeda Polifolia, amid sphagnum, lambkill, Andromeda calyculata, blueberry bushes, etc., though there is very little to be seen above the snow. It is, I have little doubt, the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia.”);  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 in some remote swamp where I have just found something novel and feel more than usually remote from the town. Or some rare plant which for some reason has occupied a strangely prominent place in my thoughts for some time will present itself. My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.”); 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.”); August 22, 1860 ("I never find a remarkable Indian relic but I have first divined its existence, and planned the discovery of it. Frequently I have told myself distinctly what it was to be before I found it.”); and note to July 2, 1857 ("We find only the world we look for.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 4

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 ©  2009-2023