I would make a chart of our life,
know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.
Henry Thoreau,
April 18, 1852
Witch-hazel in prime –
yellow leaves by their color
concealing flowers.
The witch-hazel has one of the broadest leaves now. May 11, 1859,
The witch-hazel on Dwarf Sumach Hill looks as if it would begin to blossom in a day or two. September 8, 1854
Witch-hazel out, maybe a day or two, in some places, but the Browns do not think the fringed gentian out yet. September 8, 1856
Witch-hazel opened –
a third or half of its leaves
are yellow and brown.
The witch-hazel has opened since the 8th; say 11th. (It was abundantly out yesterday on Wachusett Mountain, where it is probably more exposed to the sun and drier. Sophia was there.) Its leaves, a third or a half of them, are yellow and brown. September 15, 1854
The witch-hazel at Conantum just begun here and there; some may have been out two or three days. Yet I saw the witch-hazel out in Brattleboro September 8th, then apparently for a day or two .
It is still a question, perhaps, though unquestionably the gentian is now far more generally out here than the hazel. September 18, 1856
The witch-hazel fruit appears to be now opening. 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, amid the now yellowing leaves. September 18, 1859
From the observation of this year I should say that the fringed gentian opened before the witch-hazel. September 18, 1859
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. For several days they are shooting their shining black seeds about my chamber. September 21, 1859
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.
Witch-hazel well out. September 24, 1853
Witch-hazel two thirds yellowed. September 27, 1857
The witch-hazel at Lee's Cliff, in a fair situation, has but begun to blossom; has not been long out, so that I think it must be later than the gentian. Its leaves are yellowed. September 29, 1853
October 2. The white pines have scarcely begun at all to change here, though a week ago last Wednesday they were fully changed at Bangor. There is fully a fortnight's difference, and methinks more. The witch-hazel, too, was more forward there. October 2, 1853
October 2. The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively. As the witch-hazel is raised above frost and can afford to be later, for this reason also I think it is so. October 2, 1853
Witch-hazel in prime,
Yellow leaves by their color
conceal the flowers.
October 4. Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown. October 4, 1858
The witch-hazel here
is in full blossom on this
magical hillside.
October 9. The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside, while its broad yellow leaves are falling. Some bushes are completely bare of leaves, and leather-colored they strew the ground. It is an extremely interesting plant, — October and November's child, and yet reminds me of the very earliest spring. Its blossoms smell like the spring, like the willow catkins; by their color as well as fragrance they belong to the saffron dawn of the year, suggesting amid all these signs of autumn, falling leaves and frost, that the life of Nature, by which she eternally flourishes, is untouched. It stands here in the shadow on the side of the hill, while the sunlight from over the top of the hill lights up its topmost sprays and yellow blossoms. Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other. I lie on my back with joy under its boughs. While its leaves fall, its blossoms spring. The autumn, then, is indeed a spring. All the year is a spring . . .When I was thinking that it bloomed too late for bees or other insects to extract honey from its flowers, – that perchance they yielded no honey, – I saw a bee upon it. How important, then, to the bees this late-blossoming plant! October 9, 1851
October 10. The blossoming of spring flowers, — not to mention the witch-hazel, — the notes of spring birds, the springing of grain and grass and other plants. October 10, 1851
October 10. As I stood amid the witch-hazels near Flint's Pond, a flock of a dozen chickadees came flitting and singing about me with great ado, — a most cheering and enlivening sound, — with incessantday-day-dayand a fine wiry strain between whiles, flitting ever nearer and nearer and nearer, inquisitively, till the boldest was within five feet of me; then suddenly, their curiosity satiated, they flit by degrees further away and disappear, and I hear with regret their retreatingday-day-days. October 10, 1851
October 11. Witch-hazel, grape, smooth sumach, and common hazel are partly fallen, — some of the first-named wholly, — yet full of bloom. It is a cool seat under the witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves! The leaves are greenish and brownish yellow. October 11, 1858
October 13. I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom for several rods around, which at first I refer to the decaying leaves. October 13, 1859
October 16. Am surprised to find an abundance of witch-hazel, now at the height of its change, where S. Wheeler cut off, at the bend of the Assabet. The tallest bushes are bare, though in bloom, but the lowest are full of leaves, many of them green, but chiefly clear and handsome yellow of various shades, from a pale lemon in the shade or within the bush to a darker and warmer yellow with out. Some are even a hue of crimson; some green, with bright yellow along the veins. October 16, 1857
October 18. By the brook, witch-hazel, as an underwood, is in the height of its change, but elsewhere exposed large bushes are bare. October 18, 1858
October 19. Wachusett Mountain.The prevailing tree on this mountain, top and all, is apparently the red oak, which toward and on the top is very low and spreading. On the sides, beside red oak, are rock maple, yellow birch, lever-wood, beech, chestnut, shagbark, hemlock, striped maple, witch-hazel, etc., etc. October 19, 1854
October 19. Witch-hazel is in prime, or probably a little past, though some buds are not yet open. Their leaves are all gone. They form large clumps on the hillside there, even thirty to fifty stems from one to two or three inches in diameter and the highest twelve feet high, falling over on every side. The now imbrowned ferns around indicate the moist soil which they like. October 19, 1856
October 19, 2018
October 19. Many witch-hazel nuts are not yet open. The bushes just bare. October 19, 1859
October 20. The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers. October 20, 1852
October 23, 2020
October 23. I can find no bright leaves now in the woods. Witch hazel, etc., are withered, turned brown, or yet green. October 23, 1857
October 26. The witch-hazel is still freshly in flower. October 26, 1855
November 1. The witch-hazels have mostly lost their blossoms, perhaps on account of the snow. November 1, 1851
November 1. I see much witch-hazel in the swamp by the south end of the Abiel Wheeler grape meadow. Some of it is quite fresh and bright. Its bark is alternate white and smooth reddish-brown, the small twigs looking as if gossamer had lodged on and draped them. What a lively spray it has, both in form and color! Truly it looks as if it would make divining-rods, – as if its twigs knew where the true gold was and could point to it. The gold is in their late blossoms. Let them alone and they never point down to earth. They impart to the whole hillside a speckled, parti-colored look. November 1, 1857
November 4. Saw witch-hazels out of bloom, some still fresh. November 4, 1852
November 6. The witch-hazel spray is peculiar and interesting, with little knubs at short intervals, zig zag, crinkle-crankle. How happens it? Did the leaves grow so close? The bud is long against the stem, with a neck to it. November 6, 1853
November 14. Probably the witch-hazel and many other flowers lingered till the 11th, when it was colder. The last leaves and flowers (?) may be said to fall about the middle of November. November 14, 1858
November 15. The river has risen yet higher than last night, so that I cut across Hubbard's meadow with ease. Take up a witch-hazel with still some fresh blossoms. November 15, 1853
November 24. At Spanish Brook Path, the witch-hazel (one flower) lingers. November 24, 1859
December 9. A few petals of the witch-hazel still hold on. A man tells me he saw a violet to-day. December 9, 1852
December 19. The witch-hazel is covered with fruit and drops over gracefully like a willow, the yellow foundation of its flowers still remaining. December 19, 1850
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel
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 © 2009-2025
