June 3.
 |
Alternate-leaf dogwood
June 3, 2017 |
P. M. — To White Cedar Swamp.
Salix lucida out of bloom, but S. nigra still in bloom. I see a large branch of S. lucida, which has been broken off probably by the ice in the winter and come down from far up-stream and lodged, butt downward, amid some bushes, where it has put forth pink fibres from the butt end in the water, and is growing vigorously, though not rooted in the bottom. It is thus detained by a clump of bushes at high water, where it begins to sprout and send its pink fibres down to the mud, and finally the water, getting down to the summer level, leaves it rooted in the bank.
The first Crataegus on Hill is in many instances done, while the second is not fairly or generally in bloom yet.
The pitch pine at Hemlocks is in bloom. The sterile flowers are yellowish, while those of the P. resinosa are dark-purple. As usual, when I jar them the pollen rises in a little cloud about the pistillate flowers and the tops of the twigs, there being a little wind.
The bass at the Island will not bloom this year. (?)
The racemed andromeda (Leucothoe) has been partly killed, — the extremities of the twigs, — so that its racemes are imperfect, the lower parts only green. It is not quite out; probably is later for this injury.
The ground of the cedar swamp, where it has been burnt over and sprouts, etc., have sprung up again, is covered with the Marchantia polymorpha. Now shows its starlike or umbrella-shaped fertile flowers and its shield-shaped sterile ones. It is a very rank and wild- looking vegetation, forming the cuticle of the swamp's foundation.
I feel the suckers' nests with my paddle, but do not see them on account of the depth of the river.
Many small devil's-needles, like shad-flies, in bushes.
Early potatoes are being hoed.
The gardener is killing the piper grass.
I have several friends and acquaintances who are very good companions in the house or for an afternoon walk, but whom I cannot make up my mind to make a longer excursion with; for I discover, all at once, that they are too gentlemanly in manners, dress, and all their habits. I see in my mind's eye that they wear black coats, considerable starched linen, glossy hats and shoes, and it is out of the question. It is a great disadvantage for a traveller to be a gentleman of this kind; he is so ill-treated, only a prey to landlords.
It would be too much of a circumstance to enter a strange town or house with such a companion. You could not travel incognito; you might get into the papers.
You should travel as a common man.
If such a one were to set out to make a walking-journey, he would betray himself at every step. Every one would see that he was trying an experiment, as plainly as they see that a lame man is lame by his limping. The natives would bow to him, other gentlemen would invite him to ride, conductors would warn him that this was the second-class car, and many would take him for a clergyman; and so he would be continually pestered and balked and run upon. You would not see the natives at all.
Instead of going in quietly at the back door and sitting by the kitchen fire, you would be shown into a cold parlor, there to confront a fireboard, and excite a commotion in a whole family. The women would scatter at your approach, and their husbands and sons would go right up to hunt up their black coats, — for they all have them; they are as cheap as dirt. You would go trailing your limbs along the highways, mere bait for corpulent innholders, as a pickerel's leg is trolled along a stream, and your part of the profits would be the frog's.
No, you must be a common man, or at least travel as one, and then nobody will know that you are there or have been there.
I would not undertake a simple pedestrian excursion with one of these, because to enter a village, or a hotel, or a private house, with such a one, would be too great a circumstance, would create too great a stir. You could only go half as far with the same means, for the price of board and lodgings would rise everywhere; so much you have to pay for wearing that kind of coat. Not that the difference is in the coat at all, for the character of the scurf is determined by that of the true liber beneath.
Innkeepers, stablers, conductors, clergymen, know a true wayfaring man at first sight and let him alone.
It is of no use to shove your gaiter shoes a mile further than usual. Sometimes it is mere shiftlessness or want of originality, — the clothes wear them; sometimes it is egotism, that cannot afford to be treated like a common man, — they wear the clothes. They wish to be at least fully appreciated by every stage-driver and schoolboy. They would like well enough to see a new place, perhaps, but then they would like to be regarded as important public personages. They would consider it a misfortune if their names were left out of the published list of passengers because they came in the steerage, — an obscurity from which they might never emerge.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 3, 1857
Salix lucida out of bloom . . . See May 14, 1857("
Salix lucida at bridge; maybe staminate earlier.”); September 3, 1856 (“The
S. lucida makes about the eleventh willow that I have distinguished. When I find a new and rare plant in Concord I seem to think it has but just sprung up here, — that it is, and not I am, the newcomer, — while it has grown here for ages before I was born.”)
September 2, 1856 (“[A]t the stone bridge, am surprised to see the
Salix lucida, a small tree with very marked and handsome leaves, on the sand, water's edge, at the great eddy. . . .”)
The first Crataegus on Hill is in many instances done, while the second is not fairly or generally in bloom yet. See
June 1, 1857 (“The second thorn on Hill will evidently open tomorrow.. . . That largest and earliest thorn is now in full bloom, and I notice that its an apple tree, . . ..”);
June 1, 1856 (“The late crataegus on hill, about May 31st.”);
June 12, 1855 (“A hawthorn grows near by, just out of bloom, twelve feet high — Crataegus Oxyacantha.”)
Crataegus, commonly called hawthorn, thornapple, May-tree, whitethorn, or hawberry, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the family
Rosaceae,.
Wikipedia
The racemed andromeda has been partly killed, . . . See
June 8, 1856 (“I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. It is dead at top and slightly leafed below. Was it the severe winter, or cutting off the protecting evergreens?”); (
April 24, 1854 ("New plant (
Racemed andromeda) flower-budded at Cedar Swamp . . . upright dense racemes of reddish flower-buds on reddish terminal shoots.”)
The ground of the cedar swamp, where it has been burnt over . . . is covered with the Marchantia polymorphs . . . a very rank and wild-looking vegetation, forming the cuticle of the swamp's foundation. See
April 23, 1856 ("The white cedar swamp consists of hummocks, now surrounded by water, where you go jumping from one to another.”)
See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cedar Swamps
We walk down the big gorge planning to go to the waterfall. It is been wet and rainy and there is a lot of water. Everything is green and lush. I am awestruck looking at the cliffs above and the greenery rocks trees forest ferns.caverns. And reflections in the stream rushing by. I take a picture of yellow birch growing on the rocks. Jane spots a hermit thrush on its nest at the mouth of the gorge. Rather than disturb it we turn around and hike out
A hermit thrush nests
here at the mouth of the gorge.
The stream rushing by.
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