A peculiarly fine September day,

September 21. 

September 21, 2019

Heard in the night a snapping sound and the fall of some small body on the floor from time to time. In the morning I found that it was produced by the witch-hazel nuts on my desk springing open and casting their seeds quite across the chamber, hard and stony as these nuts are. 

It is overcast, like yesterday, and yet more rain-promising. Methinks the 19th was such a day (the second after rain) as the 18th in '58, — a peculiarly fine September day, looking toward the fall, warm and bright, with yellow butterflies in the washed road, and early-changed maples and shrubs adorning the low grounds. The red nesaea blazing along the Assabet above the powder-mills. The apple crop, red and yellow, more conspicuous than ever amid the washed leaves. 

The farmers on all sides are digging their potatoes, so prone to their work that they do not see me going across lots. 

I sat near Coombs's pigeon-place by White Pond. The pigeons sat motionless on his bare perches, from time to time dropping down into the bed and uttering a quivet or two. Some stood on the perch; others squatted flat. I could see their dove-colored breasts. Then all at once, being alarmed, would take flight, but ere long return in straggling parties. 

He tells me that he has fifteen dozen baited, but does not intend to catch any more at present, or for two or three weeks, hoping to attract others. Rice says that white oak acorns pounded up, shells and all, make the best bait for them. 

I see now in the wood-paths where small birds and partridges, etc., have been destroyed, — only their feathers left, — probably by hawks. Do they not take their prey often to a smooth path in the woods? 

White Pond is being dimpled here and there all over, perhaps by fishes; and so is the river. It is an overcast day. Has that anything to do with it? 

I see some of the rainbow girdle reflected around its edge. Looking with the proper intention of the eye, I see it is ribbed with the dark prolonged reflections of the pines almost across. But why are they bent one side? Is it the effect of the wind? 

We are having our dog-days now and of late, methinks, having had none to speak of in August; and now at last I see a few toadstools, — the election-cake (the yellowish, glazed over) and the taller, brighter-yellow above. Those shell-less slugs which eat apples eat these also. 

Jays are more frequently heard of late, maybe because other birds are more silent. 

Considerable many acorns are fallen (black oak chiefly) in the path under the south edge of Conant's Wood, this side of White Pond. Acorns have been falling very sparingly ever since September 1, but are mostly wormy. They are as interesting now on the shrub oak (green) as ever. 

I suspect that it is not when the witch-hazel nut first gapes open that the seeds fly out, for I see many (if not most of them) open first with the seeds in them; but when I release a seed (it being still held by its base), it flies as I have said. I think that its slippery base is compressed by the unyielding shell, which at length expels it, just as I can make one fly by pressing it and letting it slip from between my thumb and finger. It appears to fit close to the shell at its base, even after the shell gapes. 

The ex-plenipotentiary refers in after [-dinner] speeches with complacency to the time he spent abroad and the various lords and distinguished men he met, as to a deed done and an ever-memorable occasion! Of what account are titles and offices and opportunities, if you do no memorable deed? 

I perceive that a spike of arum berries which I gathered quite green September 1 is now turned completely scarlet, and though it has lain on my desk in a dry and warm chamber all the while, the berries are still perfectly plump and fresh (as well as glossy) to look at, — as much so as any. 

The greater part [of], almost all, the mikania was killed by the frost of the 15th and 16th. Only that little which was protected by its position escaped and is still in bloom. And the button-bush too is generally browned above by the same cause. This has given a considerably brown look to the side of the river. 

Saw baeomyces (lately opened, probably with the rain of the 17th) by roadside. 

Yesterday was a still, overcast, rain-promising day, and I saw this morning (perhaps it was yesterday) the ground about the back door all marked with worm-piles. Had they not come out for water after the dry weather? 

See a St. Domingo cuckoo (black-billed) still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1859

The witch-hazel nuts on my desk springing open and casting their seeds quite across the chamber. September 18, 1859 ("The double-fruited stone splits and reveals the two shining black oblong seeds. It has a peculiarly formed nut, in pretty clusters, clothed, as it were, in close-fitting buckskin.")

A peculiarly fine September day, looking toward the fall, warm and bright, with yellow butterflies.  See September 21, 1854  ("With this bright, clear, but rather cool air the bright yellow of the autumnal dandelion is in harmony "); September 21, 1857 ("The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days.") See also September 18, 1858 ("It is a wonderful day."); September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day, warm but not too warm, a harvest day . . ."If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.”)

Yellow butterflies in the washed road. See note to September 19, 1859 ("See many yellow butterflies in the road this very pleasant day after the rain of yesterday.")

The red nesaea blazing along the Assabet above the powder-mills. See July 21, 1859 ("The nesaea grows commonly along the river near the powder-mills, one very dense bed of it at the mouth of the powder-mill canal.")

The farmers on all sides are digging their potatoes, so prone to their work that they do not see me going across lots. Compare September 27, 1858 ("The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast."); November 18, 1851 ("The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work. "); April 12, 1854 ("It is from out the shadow of my toil that I look into the light."); April 30, 1856 (“ Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. The music or the beauty belong not to your work. . . but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work.”)

At last I see a few toadstools, — the election-cake (the yellowish, glazed over). See October 2, 1859 ("Nowadays I see most of the election-cake fungi, with crickets and slugs eating them"); October 4, 1858 ("See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools."); October 10, 1858 ("I find the under sides of the election-cake fungi there covered with pink-colored fleas"); October 20, 1856 (“I notice, as elsewhere of late, a great many brownish-yellow (and some pink) election-cake fungi, eaten by crickets; about three inches in diameter."); October 16, 1859 ("That election-cake fungus which is still growing (as for some months) appears to be a Boletus"); October 20, 1857 ("I see the yellowish election-cake fungi."); October 29, 1855 ("There are many fresh election-cake toadstools amid the pitch pine”); See also Concord: A Sense of Place, October 20, 2015, Election-cake Fungus Mystery.

Jays are more frequently heard of late. See September 21, 1854 (“I hear many jays since the frosts began”)

From the factory dam to the powder-mills.

July 21. 

P. M. — To Assabet, above factory. 

July 21, 2019

For about one third the way from the factory dam to the powder-mills the river is broad and deep, in short a mill-pond. 

Harrington has what he calls his Elm Hole, where he thinks he finds the old bed of the river some ten rods from the present. The river in many places evidently once washed the base of hills, from which it is now separated by fifty rods of meadow. 

The pontederia on the Assabet is a very fresh and clear blue to-day, and in its early prime, — very handsome to see. 

The nesaea grows commonly along the river near the powder-mills, one very dense bed of it at the mouth of the powder-mill canal. The canal is still cluttered with the wreck of the mills that have been blown up in times past, — timber, boards, etc., etc., — and the steep hill is bestrewn with the fragments of the mills, which fell on it more than half a dozen years ago (many of them), visible half a mile off. 

As you draw near the powder-mills, you see the hill behind bestrewn with the fragments of mills which have been blown up in past years, — the fragments of the millers having been removed, — and the canal is cluttered with the larger ruins. 

The very river makes greater haste past the dry-house, as it were for fear of accidents.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 21, 1859

Harrington has what he calls his Elm Hole.See July 20, 1859 ("Hosmer says that when he digs down in his millet- field, twenty rods or more from the river, in his interval, at three or four feet depth he comes to coarse stones which look like an old bed of the river. ")

The pontederia on the Assabet is a very fresh and clear blue to-day, and in its early prime. See  July 18, 1852 ("The pontederias are now in their prime . . .They are very freshly blue. In the sun, when you are looking west, they are of a violaceous blue."); July 18, 1853 ("The fields of pontederia are in some places four or five rods wide and almost endless")

The steep hill is bestrewn with the fragments of the mills, which fell on it more than half a dozen years ago . See January 7, 1853 ("Timber six inches square and eighteen feet long was thrown over a hill eighty feet high.")

Powder-mills. Nathan Pratt purchased a  mill pond dam on the Assabet River and converted the former sawmill to a powder mill in 1835. The first explosion, in the first year the mills were operating, killed four men in 1836. The last three explosions in 1940 ended gunpowder production, and the dam at the original mill pond site is now being used to generate hydroelectricity for municipal Concord. The body of water created by the dam goes by the name Ripple Pond, and is located in Acton and Maynard.~ Wikipedea

That swamp is a singularly wild place

September 6.

 6 A. M. — To Merrick’s shore. 

Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect. I think this is what I have mistaken for the young purple finch note. 

Also hear apparently a yellow-throated vireo. 

That fine spreading-panicled dark-purple grass, now rising all along the river near the waterside, is Panicum agrostoides; in prime. That finer and narrower-panicled, now out of bloom, is red-top, or else white bent; with the former.

River risen still higher, and weeds covered.

 P. M. — To Ledum Swamp. 

Going over Clamshell Plain, I see a very large flock of a hundred or more cowbirds about some cows. They whirl away on some alarm and alight on a neighboring rail fence, close together on the rails, one above another. Then away they whirl and settle on a white oak top near me. Half of them are evidently quite young birds, having glossy black breasts with a drab line down middle. The heads of all are light-colored, perhaps a slaty drab, and some apparently wholly of this color. 

On the hillside above Clamshell Ditch, grows that handsome grass of Sept. 1st (vide September 4th), evidently Sorghum nutans (Andropogon of Bigelow), chestnut beard grass, Indian grass, wood grass. It is much larger than what I saw before; is still abundantly in flower; four and a half feet high; leaves, perhaps arundinaceous, eighteen inches long; panicle, nine inches long. It is a very handsome, wild-looking grass, well enough called Indian grass, and I should have named it with the other andropogons, August 26th. 

With its narrow one-sided panicle of bright purple and yellow (I include the yellow anthers) often waving [?], raised high above the leaves, it looks like a narrow banner. It is of more vivid colors than its congeners, and might well have caught an Indian’s eye. These bright banners are now advanced on the distant hillsides, not in large armies, but scattered troops or single file, like the red men themselves. They stand thus fair and bright in our midst, as it were representative of the race which they are named after, but for the most part unobserved. It stands like an Indian chief taking a last look at his beloved hunting grounds. 

The expression of this grass haunted me for a week after I first passed and noticed it, like the glance of an eye. 

Aster patens past prime at Money-Diggers’ Hill. Polygonum tenue, how long? 

Solidago nemoralis is apparently in prime on Lupine Hill; some of it past. It is swarming with butterflies, — yellow, small red, and large, — fluttering over it. 

At Ledum Pool edge, I find the Woodwardia Virginica fern, its fruit mostly turned deep reddish-brown. It appears to grow only close to the pool, part of the fruit forming two lines parallel with the midrib. A third part of the nesaea there is turned scarlet. Kalmia glauca is again in bloom. The hairy huckleberries are rather scarce and soft. They are in sipid and leave a hairy skin in the month. 

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. 

Stopped and talked with W. W. and ate a watermelon with him on the grass. Once his senseless democracy appeared. He spoke with an ignorant pride of Buchanan’s telegraphic message, of which most of us were ashamed; said he supposed he had more learning than Victoria! But the less said about them the better. 

Seeing a stake-driver flying up the river, he observed that when you saw that bird flying about it was a never failing sign of a storm approaching. How many of these sayings like this arise not from a close and frequent observation of the phenomena of nature, but from a distant and casual one!

I find very common in prime by roadsides, in dry ground, etc., Vilfa vaginaeflora, rush grass, hidden-flowered vilfa; also by Corner roadside, beyond brooks, Panicum filiforme with and like P. sanguinale, apparently in prime, and with last fills the old mullein-field in front of Bear Garden Hill. 

Is that narrowly-linear-leaved potamogeton, all immersed and now forming dense beds in the Assabet, a distinct species, or only the immersed leaves of one? Vide pressed. 

A year ago last spring I gave to Edith Emerson and to Sophia some clasping hound’s-tongue seeds, it being very rare hereabouts, wishing to spread it. Now and for a long time it has been a pest in the garden (it does not bloom till the second year), by its seeds clinging to our clothes. Mrs. E. has carried it to Boston thus, and I have spent twenty minutes at once in clearing myself of it. So it is in a fair way to be dispersed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 6, 1858


Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect. I think this is what I have mistaken for the young purple finch note. See note to  September 6, 1859 ("I hear occasionally a half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops, as I go down the street nowadays"); also  September 3, 1858 ("I hear a faint warble from time to time from some young or old birds, from my window these days. Is it the purple finch again, — young birds practicing?"); August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare")


Now and for a long time it has been a pest in the garden. See June 5, 1858 ("Clasping hound's-tongue in garden.")

First river walk.

March 6.

P. M. — Up river on ice to Fair Haven Pond.

The river is frozen more solidly than during the past winter, and for the first time for a year I could cross it in most places. I did not once cross it the past winter, though by choosing a safe place I might have done so, without doubt, once or twice. But I have had no river walks before. 

I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter. Its scream, even, is inspiring as the voice of a spring bird. 

That light spongy bark about the base of the nesaea appears to be good tinder. I have only to touch one end to a coal, and it all burns up slowly, without blazing, in whatever position held, and even after being dipped in water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 6, 1858

I have had no river walks before. See January 23, 1858 (" I have not been able to walk up the North Branch this winter, nor along the channel of the South Branch at any time."). Compare December 13, 1859 ("My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer. It is the walk peculiar to winter, and now first I take it."); December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond."); March 4, 1852 ("Now I take that walk along the river highway and the meadow. The river is frozen solidly, and I do not have to look out for openings.")

I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter. See February 16, 1854 ("See two large hawks circling over the woods by Walden, hunting, — the first I have seen since December 15th."); March 2, 1855 ("Hear two hawks scream. There is something truly March-like in it, like a prolonged blast or whistling of the wind through a crevice in the sky.”); March 2, 1856 ("I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be beginning to build their nests now, yet their young were a fortnight old the last of April last year."); March 4, 1860 ("A hen-hawk rises and sails away over the Holden Wood as in summer. Saw and heard one scream the 2d"); March 8, 1853 ("Saw two or three hawks sailing."); March 8, 1857 ("Get a glimpse of a hawk, the first of the season."); March 15, 1860 ("These hawks, as usual, began to be common about the first of March, showing that they were returning from their winter quarters."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Hawks of March

That light spongy bark about the base of the nesaea appears to be good tinder. See February 4, 1858 ("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?"); January 22, 1860 ("At the west or nesaea end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice."); January 24, 1855 ("I observe that the andromeda does not quite fill the pond, but there is an open wet place, with coarse grass, swamp loosestrife, and some button-bush, about a rod wide, surrounding the whole"); December 18, 1854 ("I am surprised to find in the Andromeda Ponds, especially the westernmost one, north side, an abundance of decodon, or swamp loosestrife")

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