And in the distance a maple by the water beginning to blush.

September 19

And in the distance a maple by the water beginning to blush

September 19, 2014

P. M. - To Great Meadows.

The red capsules of the sarothra.

Many large crickets about on the sand.

Observe the effects of frost in particular places.

Some blackberry vines are very red.

I see the oxalis and the tree primrose and the Norway cinquefoil and the prenanthes and the Epilobium coloratum and the cardinal-flower and the small hypericum and yarrow, and I think it is the Ranunculus repens, between Ripley Hill and river, with spotted leaves lingering still.

The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises, - solid bulbs of blue from the shade, the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river, after so much has been mown.

The polygala and the purple gerardia are still common and attract by their high color.

The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound.

The Viola lanceolata has blossomed again, and the lambkill.

What pretty six-fingered leaves the three oxalis leafets make! 

I see the effects of frost on the Salix Purshiana, imbrowning their masses; and in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush.

That small, slender-leaved, rose-tinted (white petals, red calyx) polygonum by the river is perhaps in its prime now; slender spikes and slender lanceolate sessile leaves, with rent hairy and ciliate sheaths, eight stamens, and three styles united in middle. Not biting. I cannot find it described.

Cicuta maculata

And what is that white flower which I should call Cicuta maculata, except that the veins do not terminate in the sinuses?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1852

The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises,  September 19, 1851 ("The soapwort gentian now."); See also September 8, 1852 ("Gentiana saponaria out."); September 19, 1851 ("The soapwort gentian now."); .("September 22, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now.") September 25, 1857 ("You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Soapwort Gentian (Gentiana saponaria)

The red capsules of the sarothra. See August 3, 1852 ("The Hypericum Sarothra appears to be out.."); August 3, 1856 ("Sarothra apparently now in prime."); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”); August 19, 1856 ("The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like. ); August 30, 1856 ("The sarothra is now apparently in prime on the Great Fields, and comes near being open now, at 3 p. m. Bruised, it has the fragrance of sorrel and lemon, rather pungent or stinging, like a bee.”); September 2, 1859 ("The sarothra grows thickly, and is now abundantly in bloom, on denuded places, i.e., where the sod and more or less soil has been removed, by sandy roadsides. "); September 23, 1852 ("The sarothra in bloom");   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

The Norway cinquefoil. See August 30, 1851 ("I perceive in the Norway cinquefoil (Potentilla Norvegica), now nearly out of blossom, that the alternate five leaves of the calyx are closing over the seeds to protect them. There is one door closed, of the closing year.")

The purple gerardia are still common and attract by their high color. See August 12, 1856 ("Gerardia purpurea, two or three days."); August 20, 1852 ("The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass."); August 21, 1851 ("The purple gerardia now."); September 11, 1852 ("How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather! When I thought they were about done, they appear to revive, and moreover their beauty is enhanced, as if by the contrast of the louring atmosphere with their bright colors. Such are the purple gerardia and the Bidens cernua.")

The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound. See September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside."); . September 13, 1856 ("Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill, about the oaks. Never saw them thicker in a meadow. A cool, spring-suggesting yellow. They reserve their force till this season, though they begin so early. Cool to the eye, as the creak of the cricket to the ear. "); August 29, 1856 ("Fragrant everlasting in prime and very abundant")

The Viola lanceolata has blossomed again. See September 28, 1852 ("I have now seen all but the blanda, palmata, and pubescens blooming again .. . This is the commencement, then, of the second spring"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

And in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush. See  September 12, 1858 ("Some small red maples by water begun to redden."); September 18, 1858 ("Many red maples are now partly turned dark crimson along the meadow-edge."); September 18, 1860 ("The first autumnal tints (of red maples) are now generally noticed"); September 20, 1857 ("A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there."); September 21, 1854 ("The red maples, especially at a distance, begin to light their fires, some turning yellow, "); September 24, 1851 ("I notice one red tree, a red maple, against the green woodside in Conant's meadow. It is a far brighter red than the blossoms of any tree in summer and more conspicuous."); September 24, 1855 ("the maples are but just beginning to blush"); September 25, 1857 ("The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence"); September 25, 1857 ("The red maple has fairly begun to blush in some places by the river. I see one, by the canal behind Barrett’s mill, all aglow against the sun."); September 25, 1857 ("A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar."); September 26, 1854 ("Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off."); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."); September 27, 1857 ("At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum."); September 29, 1851 ("The intense brilliancy of the red-ripe maples scattered here and there in the midst of the green oaks and hickories on its hilly shore is quite charming. They are unexpectedly and incredibly brilliant, especially on the western shore and close to the water's edge, where, alternating with yellow birches and poplars and green oaks, they remind me of a line of soldiers, redcoats and riflemen in green mixed together."); September 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to see that some red maples, which were so brilliant a day or two ago, have already shed their leaves, and they cover the land and the water quite thickly."); October 3, 1858 ("Some particular maple among a hundred will be of a peculiarly bright and pure scarlet, and, by its difference of tint and intenser color, attract our eyes even at a distance in the midst of the crowd"); October 8, 1852 (“Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.”)

And what is that white flower which I should call Cicuta maculata? See June 6, 1851 ("Gathered to-night the Cicuta maculata, American hemlock, the veins of the leaflets ending in the notches and the root fasciculated."); August 20, 1851 ("Sium lineare, a kind of water-parsnip, whose blossom resembles the Cicuta maculata.") August 29, 1858 ("Cicuta maculata, apparently generally done."); August 30, 1857 ("The flower of Cicuta maculata smells like the leaves of the golden senecio.."); October 2, 1859 ("The Cicuta maculata, for instance, the concave umbel is so well spaced, the different um-bellets (?) like so many constellations or separate systems in the firmament.") Note. Cicuta maculata is a highly poisonous species of flowering plant in the carrot family known by several common names, including spotted water hemlock, spotted parsley, spotted cowbane, and suicide root. It is considered to be North America's most toxic plant.~ Wikipedia

September 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 19

And in the distance

a maple by the water

beginning to blush.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. A maple by the water

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520919 

As soon as berries are gone, grapes come.

September 14.

September 14, 2022

A great change in the weather from sultry to cold, from one thin coat to a thick coat or two thin ones.

2 P. M. To Cliffs.

The dry grass yields a crisped sound to my feet.

The white oak which appears to have made part of a hedge fence once, now standing in Hubbard's fence near the Corner road, where it stretches along horizontally, is (one of its arms, for it has one running each way) two and a half feet thick, with a sprout growing perpendicularly out of it eighteen inches in diameter.

The corn-stalks standing in stacks, in long rows along the edges of the corn-fields, remind me of stacks of muskets.

As soon as berries are gone, grapes come.

The chalices of the Rhexia Virginica, deer-grass or meadow beauty, are literally little reddish chalices now, though many still have petals, little cream pitchers.

Rhexia Virginica, deer-grass or meadow beauty, 

See October 2, 1856

(“Its seed-vessels are perfect little cream-pitchers of graceful form.”)

The caducous polygala in cool places is faded almost white.

See August 17, 1851

("The Polygala sanguinea, caducous polygala, 

in damp ground, with red or purple heads.")

I see the river at the foot of Fair Haven Hill running up-stream before the strong cool wind, which here strikes it from the north.

The cold wind makes me shudder after my bath, before I get dressed.

Polygonum aviculare — knot-grass, goose-grass, or door-grass still in bloom.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 14, 1851

The corn-stalks standing in stacks, in long rows along the edges of the corn-fields. See July 12, 1851 ("The earliest corn is beginning to show its tassels now, and I scent it as I walk, — its peculiar dry scent."); September 2, 1851 ("A writer, a man writing, is the scribe of all nature; he is the corn and the grass and the atmosphere writing."); September 5, 1851 ("A field of ripening corn, now at night, that has been topped, with the stalks stacked up to dry, – an inexpressibly dry, rich, sweet ripening scent. I feel as if I were an ear of ripening corn myself.")

As soon as berries are gone, grapes come. See September 12, 1851 ("How autumnal is the scent of ripe grapes now by the roadside! "); 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."); September 24, 1851 ("Grapes are ripe and already shrivelled by frost.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Grape

The chalices of the Rhexia Virginica, deer-grass or meadow beauty, are literally little reddish chalices now. See July 18, 1852 ("The petals of the rhexia have a beautiful clear purple with a violet tinge."); July 23, 1853 (" The rhexia is seen afar on the islets, — its brilliant red like a rose. It is fitly called meadow-beauty. Is it not the handsomest and most striking and brilliant flower since roses and lilies began? "); July 29, 1856 ("Rhexia. Probably would be earlier if not mowed down."); August 1, 1856 ("They make a splendid show, these brilliant rose-colored patches . . Yet few ever see them in this perfection, unless the haymaker who levels them, or the birds that fly over the meadow. Far in the broad wet meadows, on the hummocks and ridges, these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over. We, dwelling and walking on the dry upland, do not suspect their existence.."); August 5, 1858 ("I cannot sufficiently admire the rhexia, one of the highest-colored purple flowers, but difficult to bring home in its perfection, with its fugacious petals.") ;August 20, 1851("The Rhexia Virginica is a showy flower at present."); August 21, 1851 ("The prevailing conspicuous flowers at present are: . . . Rhexia Virginica, . . . Polygala sanguinea,");  August 23, 1858 ("The rhexia in the field west of Clintonia Swamp makes a great show now, though a little past prime");   August 27, 1856 (“The rhexia greets me in bright patches on meadow banks.”); August 28, 1859 ("The rhexia in Ebby Hubbard's field is considerably past prime, and it is its reddish chalices which show most at a distance now. I should have looked ten days ago. Still it is handsome with its large yellow anthers against clear purple petals. It grows there in large patches with hardhack."): September 28, 1858 ("Acalypha is killed by frost, and rhexia."); October 2, 1856 (“The scarlet leaves and stem of the rhexia, some time out of flower, makes almost as bright a patch in the meadow now as the flowers did, with its bristly leaves. Its seed-vessels are perfect little cream-pitchers of graceful form.”)  See alao also https://bsky.app/profile/geoffwisner.bsky.social/post/3mvi7hnrmkc2e

The caducous polygala in cool places is faded almost white. See July 4, 1853 ("Polygala sanguinea."); July 6, 1854 ("Polygala sanguinea, apparently a day or more."); July 13, 1852 ("The Polygala sanguinea and P. cruciata in Blister's meadow, both numerous and well out."); July 13, 1856 ("Polygala sanguinea, some time, Hubbard's Meadow Path; say meadow-paths and banks. ");July 16, 1854 ("The Polygala sanguinea heads in the grass look like sugar-plums.");July 17, 1852 ("The caducous polygala has the odor of checkerberry at its root, and hence I thought the flower had a fugacious, spicy fragrance."); July 31, 1856 ("As I am going across to Bear Garden Hill, I see much white Polygala sanguinea with the red in A. Wheeler's meadow");August 13, 1856 (“Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime? — The polygala roots, blue-curls, wormwood, pennyroyal, . . . etc., etc. Does not the season require this tonic?“); August 17, 1851 ("The Polygala sanguinea, caducous polygala, in damp ground, with red or purple heads."); August 21, 1851 ("The prevailing conspicuous flowers at present are: . . . Rhexia Virginica, . . . Polygala sanguinea,");  August 30, 1859 ("The prevailing flowers, considering both conspicuous-ness and numbers, at present time, as I think now: . . . Polygala sanguinea, etc."); September 3, 1854 ("In the meadow southwest of Hubbard's Hill saw white Polygala sanguinea, not described."); September 3, 1856 ("Polygala sanguinea is now as abundant, at least, as at any time, and perhaps more conspicuous in the meadows where I look for fringed gentian."); September 13, 1851 ("The cross-leaved polygala emits its fragrance as if at will. . . . Both this and the caducous polygala are now some what faded."); October 14, 1856 ("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."); November 8, 1858 ("Pratt says he saw a few florets on a Polygala sanguinea within a week.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Polygala

I see the river at the foot of Fair Haven Hill running up-stream See April 16, 1852 ("A succession of bays it is, a chain of lakes, . . .There is just stream enough for a flow of thought; that is all. Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs. "); July 30, 1859 ("Trying the current there, there being a very faint . . . wind, commonly not enough to be felt on the cheek or to ripple the water, . . .my boat is altogether blown up-stream, even by this imperceptible breath. . . .It is a mere string of lakes which have not made up their minds to be rivers. As near as possible to a standstill.")

tinyurl.com/HDTgrapesept14

The Bedford sunrise bell.

September 13 

Railroad causeway, before sunrise.

Here is a morning after a warm, clear, moonlight night almost entirely without dew or fog.

It has been a little breezy through the night, it is true; but why so great a difference between this and other mornings of late? I can walk in any direction in the fields without wetting my feet.

I see the same rays in the dun, buff, or fawn-colored sky now, just twenty minutes before sunrise, though they do not extend quite so far as at sundown the other night. Why these rays? What is it divides the light of the sun? Is it thus divided by distant inequalities in the surface of the earth, behind which the other parts are concealed, and since the morning atmosphere is clearer they do not reach so far?

Some small island clouds are the first to look red.

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 somewhat faded.

Now the sun is risen. The sky is almost perfectly clear this morning; not a cloud in the horizon.

The morning is not pensive like the evening, but joyous and youthful, and its blush is soon gone. It is unfallen day.

The Bedford sunrise bell rings sweetly and musically at this hour, when there is no bustle in the village to drown it. Bedford deserves a vote of thanks from Concord for it. It is a great good at these still and sacred hours, when towns can hear each other. It would be nought at noon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 13, 1851

The cross-leaved polygala emits its fragrance as if at will.  See August 27, 1851 ("Polygala cruciata, cross-leaved polygala, has a very sweet but intermittent fragrance, as of checkerberry and mayflowers combined.");); 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"); see also August 13, 1856 ("The root of the Polygala verticillata also has the checkerberry odor.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Polygala

The morning is not pensive like the evening, but joyous and youthful, and its blush is soon gone. See July 3, 1840 (We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves.); July 18, 1851 ("It is a test question affecting the youth of a person , — Have you knowledge of the morning? Do you sympathize with that season of nature? Are you abroad early, brushing the dews aside ? If the sun rises on you slumbering, if you do not hear the morning cock-crow, if you do not witness the blushes of Aurora, if you are not acquainted with Venus as the morning star, what relation have you to wisdom and purity? "); December 29, 1851 ("What a fine and measureless joy the gods grant us by letting us know nothing about the day that is to dawn! . . . This day, yesterday, was as incredible as any other miracle."); March 17, 1852 (“There is a moment in the dawn,. . . when we see things more truly than at any other time.”); June 13, 1852 ("All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes"); June 17, 1852 ("Perhaps these mornings are the most memorable in the year, — after a sultry night and before a sultry day, — when, especially, the morning is the most glorious season of the day, when its coolness is most refreshing and you enjoy the glory of the summer gilded or silvered with dews, without the torrid summer's sun or the obscuring haze."); August 31, 1852 ("Morning is full of promise and vigor. Evening is pensive."); January 26, 1853 (“ I look back . . . not into the night, but to a dawn for which no man ever rose early enough.”); March 31, 1852("How can one help being an early riser and walker in that season when the birds begin to twitter and sing in the morning? March 22, 1853 ("As soon as these spring mornings arrive in which the birds sing, I am sure to be an early riser.. . .expecting the dawn in so serene and joyful and expectant a mood."); January 8, 1854 ("The morning hope is soon lost in what becomes the routine of the day, and we do not recover ourselves again until we land on the pensive shores of evening, shores which skirt the great western continent of the night."); Walden (“To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say . . . Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.”); Walden (“ Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”); Walden ("We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”); February 25, 1859 ("Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, — if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you,— know that the morning and spring of your life are past.")

The Bedford sunrise bell rings sweetly and musically at this hour. See January 2, 1842 ("The ringing of the church bell is a much more melodious sound than any that is heard within the church."); August 8, 1851 (“I hear the nine o'clock bell ringing in Bedford. Pleasantly sounds the voice of one village to another. ”); January 2, 1853 ("The bells are particularly sweet this morning."); January 21, 1853 ("In this stillness and at this distance, I hear the nine-o'clock bell in Bedford five miles off, which I might never hear in the village, but here its music surmounts the village din and has something very sweet and noble and inspiring in it, associated, in fact, with the hooting of owls."); ; April 15, 1855 ("The sound of church bells . . ., sounds very sweet to us on the water this still day").  See also  March 3, 1841 ("Nature always possesses a certain sonorousness , as in the hum of insects, the booming of ice, the crowing of cocks in the morning, and the barking of dogs in the night, which indicates her sound state. God's voice is but a clear bell sound. I drink in a wonderful health, a cordial, in sound. The effect of the slightest tinkling in the horizon measures my own soundness. I thank God for sound; it always mounts, and makes me mount. I think I will not trouble myself for any wealth, when I can be so cheaply enriched.") See also Basho:

As the sound fades,

the scent of flowers comes up –

the evening bell.

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

Now it has no smell

a fragance you remember –

the sunrise bell.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The Bedford sunrise bell

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

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

The beauty of some butterflies, - dark steel blue with a light - blue edge.

July 4

July 4, 2013

The cotton-grass at Beck Stow's.

Is it different from the early one? High blueberries begin.

The oval-leaved drosera in bloom.

Campanula aparinoides.

I see now a later (?) rose in lower, wetter ground.

Polygala sanguinea.

The weeds are now so thick in the river — potamogetons, heart - leaf, Ranunculus Purshii, eel - grass, etc., etc. — as almost to con ceal the stream and seriously to obstruct the passage of my boat.

Polygonum sagittatum.

The cymbidium now perhaps in its prime.

I am attracted by the peculiar glaucous leaves of the rhodora.

Noli-me tangere.

The beauty of some butterflies, - dark steel blue with a light-blue edge.

Circæa, some time, the small one, at Corner Spring.

Parsnips.

The bass appears now — or a few trees — to have bloomed here and there prematurely.

The gall on the leaves of the slippery elm is like fruit.

The greater plantain, a few days.

The fine feathery tail of the Equisetum sylvaticum (?) nowadays in damp woods, near Corner Spring.

The Potamogeton hybridus (?) in fruit and flower ; though the spike is cylindrical like P. heterophyllus, yet the petioles are shorter than the float ing leaves.

What is the apparently wholly immersed potamogeton, upright with linear-lanceolate leaves? (No flower nor fruit now.)

Also what is that small upright, round, tapering plant, three inches high, at bottom of river, with apparently bristle-formed leaves arranged alternately crosswise, visibly cellular?

At Lee's Cliff, under the slippery elm, Parietaria Pennsylvanica, American pellitory, in flower, and near by Anychia dichotoma, forked chickweed (Queria [sic]) also in flower.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  July 4, 1853

The beauty of some butterflies, - dark steel blue with a light - blue edge.See July 16, 1853 ("I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias pulchra) by the roadside, a really handsome flower; also the smaller butterfly, with reddish wings, and a larger, black or steel-blue, with wings spotted red on edge, and one of equal size, reddish copper-colored")

Do I perceive the shadows lengthen already?

September 8. 

Grapes ripe on the Assabet for some days.

September 8, 2017

Gentiana saponaria out. 

Carrion-flower berries ripe for some days. 

Polygala verticillata still, on left side of road beyond Lee place. I put it with the other polygalas in July. 

Do I perceive the shadows lengthen already?

September 8, 2017

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 8, 1852

Grapes ripe on the Assabet for some days. See note to September 8, 1854 ("The grapes would no doubt be riper a week hence, but I am compelled to go now before the vines are stripped. I partly smell them out.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Grape

Gentiana saponaria out. See September 6, 1857 ("Soapwort gentian, out not long"); September 19, 1851 ("The soapwort gentian now."); September 19, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises, -- solid bulbs of blue from the shade, the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river, after so much has been mown"); September 22, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now.") September 25, 1857 ("You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Soapwort Gentian (Gentiana saponaria)

Carrion-flower berries ripe. See September 3, 1856  ("One carrion-flower berry is turning blue in its dense spherical cluster.")


Polygala verticillata still, on left side of road. . .See September 10, 1856 ("Near the site of the old Bellows Fort, saw completely purple Polygala verticillata abundant in road.")   See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Polygala

. . .left side of road beyond Lee place. See February 15, 1857 ("When I returned from Worcester yesterday morning, I found that the Lee house, of which six weeks ago I made an accurate plan, had been completely burned up the evening before, i. e. the 13th, while I was lecturing in Worcester.")

This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm.

May 23. 

May 23, 2017
(avesong)

P. M. — To Holden Swamp by boat. 

River still high generally over the meadows. Can sail across the Hubbard meadow. 

Off Staples wood-lot, hear the ah tche tche chit-i-vet of the redstart. 

Tortoises out again abundantly. Each particularly warm and sunny day brings them out on to every floating rail and stump. I count a dozen within three or four feet on a rail. It is a tortoise day. 

I hear one regular bullfrog trump, and as I approach the edge of the Holden Swamp, the tree-toads. 

Hear the pepe there, and the redstarts, and the chestnut-sided warbler. It appears striped slate and black above, white beneath, yellow-crowned with black side-head, two yellow bars on wing, white side-head below the black, black bill, and long chestnut streak on side. Its song lively and rather long, about as the summer yellowbird, but not in two bars; tse tse tse \ te tsah tsah tsah \ te sak yer se is the rhythm. 

Kalmia glauca yesterday. Rhodora, on shore there, a little before it. 

Nemopanthes, a day or two. 

This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm. When the leaves generally are just fairly expanding, and the deciduous trees are hoary with them, — a silvery hoari-ness, — then, about the edges of the swamps in the woods, these birds are flitting about in the tree-tops like gnats, catching the insects about the expanding leaf-buds. 

I wade in the swamp for the kalmia, amid the water andromeda and the sphagnum, scratching my legs with the first and sinking deep in the last. The water is now gratefully cool to my legs, so far from being poisoned in the strong water of the swamp. It is a sort of baptism for which I had waited. 

At Miles Swamp, the carpinus sterile catkins, apparently a day or two, but I see no fertile ones, unless that is one (pressed) at the southeast edge of swamp near grafted apple, and its catkins are effete! 

Hear the first veery strain. 

The small twigs of the carpinus are singularly tough, as I find when I try to break off the flowers. They bend without breaking. 

Sand cherry at Lupine Bank, possibly a day. Sassafras, a day or two. Fringed polygala, I hear of.

The first goldfinch twitters over, and at evening I hear the spark of a nighthawk.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 23, 1857

Off Staples wood-lot, hear the ah tche tche chit-i-vet of the redstart. See May 29, 1855 (“But what is that bird I hear much like the first part of the yellowbird’s strain, only two thirds as long and varied at end, and not so loud, — a-che che che, che-a, or tche tche tche, tche-a, or ah tche tche tche, chit-i-vet? ”); June 4, 1855 ("Redstarts still very common in the Trillium Woods (yesterday on Assabet also). Note tche, tche, tche vit, etc.”); June 6, 1855 ("On the Island I hear still the redstart—tsip tsip tsip tsip, tsit-i-yet, or sometimes tsip tsip tsip tsip, tse vet. A young male.”)  See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

The chestnut-sided warbler. See May 20, 1856 ("I now see distinctly the chestnut-sided warbler (of the 18th and 17th), by Beck Stow’s. It is very lively on the maples, birches, etc., over the edge of the swamp. Sings eech eech eech | wichy wichy | tchea or itch itch itch | witty witty | tchea  ");  May 24, 1854 ("In woods the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. It is exploring low trees and bushes, often along stems about young leaves, and frequently or after short pauses utters its somewhat summer-yellowbird like note, say, tchip tchip, chip chip (quick), tche tche ter tchéa, —— sprayey and rasping and faint.")

Kalmia glauca yesterday. Rhodora, on shore there, a little before it. See May 27, 1856 ("Kalmia in prime, and rhodora. . . ."); May 26, 1855 ("To my surprise the Kalmia glauca almost all out; perhaps began with rhodora. A very fine flower, the more interesting for being early."); 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 . . . the Kalmia glauca var.rosmarinifolia.") Note: the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia is known as rosemary-leaf laurel or alpine bog laurel (Andromeda Polifolia) H. Peter Loewer, Thoreau's Garden: Native Plants for the American Landscape 32-33

This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers. See note to May 18, 1856  ("The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce. They swarm like gnats now. They fill the air with their little tshree tshree sprayey notes.")

I wade in the swamp for the kalmia, . . . a sort of baptism for which I had waited. Compare May 13, 1860 ("The swamp is so dry that I walk about it in my shoes").

The first goldfinch twitters over. See May 4, 1856 ("Hear and see a goldfinch, on the ground."); May 5, 1854 ("Hear what I should call the twitter and mew of a goldfinch and see the bird go over with ricochet flight"); May 13, 1854 ("Goldfinch heard pretty often."); May 17, 1856 ("A goldfinch twitters over. ")

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau May 23

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

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.").

Viburnum nudum berries.

September 3  P. M. — To Hubbard's Swamp for Viburnum nudum berries. 

September 3

The river smooth, though full, with the autumn sheen on it, as on the leaves. 

I see painted tortoises with their entire backs covered with perfectly fresh clean black scales, such as no rubbing nor varnishing can produce, contrasting advantageously with brown and muddy ones. One little one floats past on a drifting pad which he partly sinks. 

I find one sassafras berry, dark-blue in its crimson cup, club-shaped. It is chiefly stone, and its taste is like that of tar (!), methinks, far from palatable. 

So many plants, the indigenous and the bewildering variety of exotics, you see in conservatories and nurserymen's catalogues, or read of in English books, and the Royal Society did not make one of them, and knows no more about them than you! All truly indigenous and wild on this earth. I know of no mark that betrays an introduced plant, as none but the gardener can tell what flower has strayed from its parterre; but where the seed will germinate and the plant spring and grow, there it is at home. 

Weeds are uncultivated herbaceous plants which do not bear handsome flowers. 

Polygala sanguinea is now as abundant, at least, as at any time, and perhaps more conspicuous in the meadows where I look for fringed gentian. 

Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. The berries, which are of various sizes and forms, — elliptical, oblong, or globular, — are in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. 

If gathered when rose-colored, they soon turn dark purple and are soft and edible, though before bitter. They add a new and variegated wildness to the swampy sprout-lands. Remarkable for passing through so many stages of color before they arrive at maturity. 

A singular and pleasing contrast, also, do the different kinds of viburnum and cornel berries present when compared with each other. The white berries of the panicled cornel, soon and apparently prematurely dropping from its pretty fingers, are very bitter. So also are those of the C. sericea. 

One carrion-flower berry is turning blue in its dense spherical cluster. 

Castile-soap galls are crowding the more legitimate acorn on the shrub oak.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 3, 1856

Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime . . . in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. See August  28, 1856  ("Viburnum nudum berries are beginning; I already see a few shrivelled purple ones amid the light green.");  August 31, 1856 ("The Viburnum nudum berries are now in prime, a handsome rose-purple . . and the next morning thirty were turned dark purple."); September 27,  1856 ("Viburnum nudum berries are soon gone. I noticed none to speak of in Hubbard's Swamp, September 15th.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnums

The river smooth . . . with the autumn sheen on it. See September 2, 1856 ("Clear bright days of late, with a peculiar sheen on the leaves.”)

Attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. See  September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man.. . . It behooves me to go a-berrying in this sense once a year at least. “)

Polygala sanguinea is now as abundant, at least, as at any time. See September 3, 1854 ("In the meadow southwest of Hubbard's Hill saw white Polygala sanguinea, not described.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Polygala

I find one sassafras berry, dark-blue in its crimson cup, club-shaped. . . methinks, far from palatable. See September 24, 1854 ("On the large sassafras trees on the hill I see many of the handsome red club-shaped pedicels left, with their empty cups.”)

Painted tortoises with . . . fresh clean black scales.  See August 31, 1856 ("A painted tortoise shedding its scales.”);  September 15, 1855 ("See many painted tortoise scales being shed, half erect on their backs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Castile-soap galls. September 4, 1854 (“In the wood-paths I find a great many of the Castile-soap galls, more or less fresh.”)

September 3.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  September 3

Various berries

sizes forms – elliptical

oblong, globular –

many stages of color.

Viburnum nudum.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum nudum berries

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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