A Book of the Seasons: The Evergreen Ferns, Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort

 [Asplenium trichomanes (Maidenhair spleenwort) 

&  Asplenium ebeneum or Asplenium platyneuron (Ebony Spleenwort)]

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

I go along under the east side of Lee's Cliff, looking at the evergreen ferns . . .

How pretty the smallest asplenium sometimes, in a recess under a shelving rock,

as it were pinned on rosettewise, as if it were the head of a breastpin.

November 18, 1858 

Almost every plant, however humble, has thus its day,

and sooner or later becomes the characteristic feature

of some part of the landscape or other.

September 10, 1860

Rock Polypody & Maidenhair spleenwort
(Polypodium vulgare & AspidiumTrichomanes,)
September, 2018

September 30. Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens. September 30, 1859

November 17.  As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —Common polypody (though shrivelled by cold where exposed). Asplenium trichomanes. A. ebeneum. Aspidium spinulosum (?) large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th. A. cristatum (?), Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond.  A. marginale (common). A. achrostichoides (terminal shield) November 17, 1858 

February 2.  We stop awhile under Bittern Cliff, the south side, where it is very warm. There are a few greenish radical leaves to be seen, — primrose and johnswort, strawberry, etc., and spleenwort still green in the clefts.  February 2, 1854

April 6.  Asplenium ferns of both species are very generally perfectly withered and shrivelled. April 6, 1858

July 17. I find to-day, at Bittern Cliff and at Lee's, Asplenium ebeneum (the larger), apparently nearly in prime, and A. Trichomanes, apparently just begun. This very commonly occurs in tufts at the base of the last, like radical leaves to it. July 17, 1857

August 10.  Is not that small narrow fern I find on Conantum about rocks ebony spleenwort? Now in fruit. August 10, 1853

August 30. The dwarf spleenwort grows in the sharp angles of the rocks in the side of Lee's Cliff, its small fronds spreading in curved rays, its matted roots coming away in triangular masses, moulded by the rock. The ebony spleenwort stands upright against the rocks.  August 30, 1853

October 28.  Both aspleniums and the small botrychium are still fresh, as if they were evergreen. The latter sheds pollen. The former are most fresh under the shelter of rocks. October 28, 1857

November 18. I go along under the east side of Lee’s Cliff, looking at the evergreen ferns. The marginal fern is the commonest. How pretty the smallest asplenium sometimes, in a recess under a shelving rock, as it were pinned on rosettewise, as if it were the head of a breastpin. November 18, 1858 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort

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

The wildest sound I ever heard.

October 8

October 8, 2020

As I was paddling along the north shore, after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came up, and again he laughed long and loud. He managed very cunningly, and I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. 

Sometimes he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, as if he had passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he, so unweariable, that he would immediately plunge again, and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a fish, perchance passing under the boat. He had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its deepest part. 

A newspaper authority says a fisherman – giving his name – has caught loon in Seneca Lake, N. Y., eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout. Miss Cooper has said the same. 

Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on the surface, and swam much faster there than he sailed on the surface. It was surprising how serenely he sailed off with unruffled bosom when he came to the surface. It was as well for me to rest on my oars and await his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he would come up. 

When I was straining my eyes over the surface, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh behind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he betray himself the moment he came to the surface with that loud laugh? His white breast enough betrayed him. He was indeed a silly loon, I thought.

Though he took all this pains to avoid me, he never failed to give notice of his whereabouts the moment he came to the surface. After an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly, and swam yet farther than at first. 

Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre, and instantly dived again. I could commonly hear the plash of the water when he came up, and so also detected him. 

It was commonly a demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like a water-bird, but occasionally, when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like a wolf than any other bird. This was his looning.

As when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground and deliberately howls; perhaps the wildest sound I ever heard, making the woods ring; and I concluded that he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own resources. 

Though the sky was overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface if I did not hear him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, the smoothness of the water, were all against [him]. At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged unearthly howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain. 

I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon and his god was angry with me. How surprised must be the fishes to see this ungainly visitant from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools! I have never seen more than one at a time in our pond, and I believe that that is always a male.

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

Today HDT records in his Journal the story of the loon diving and dodging him on Walden that is to be incorporated into "Walden." See also October 3, 1852 ("Hear the loud laughing of a loon on Flint's, apparently alone in the middle. A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake. "), The Maine Woods (" In the middle of the night, as indeed each time that we lay on the shore of a lake, we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Perfect autumn. Walden

October 8.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 8

Maples by the shore

extending their red banners

over the water.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The wildest sound I ever heard

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-wild

I saw the seal of evening on the river.

August 31.

August 31, 2017

Half an hour before sunset I was at Tupelo Cliff, when, looking up from my botanizing, I saw the seal of evening on the river. There was a quiet beauty in the landscape at that hour which my senses were prepared to appreciate. 

• The sun going down on the west side, that hand being already in shadow for the most part, but his rays lighting up the water and the willows and pads even more than before. His rays then fell at right angles on their stems.

• I sitting on the old brown geologic rocks, their feet submerged and covered with weedy moss. Sometimes their tops are submerged.

• The cardinal-flowers standing by me.

The trivialness of the day is past. 

• The greater stillness, the serenity of the air, its coolness and transparency, the mistiness being condensed, are favorable to thought. (The pensive eve.)

• The coolness of evening comes to condense the haze of noon and make the air transparent and the outline of objects firm and distinct, and chaste (chaste eve). 

Even as I am made more vigorous by my bath, am more continent of thought. After bathing, even at noonday, a man realizes a morning or evening life. The evening air is such a bath for both mind and body.

When I have walked all day in vain under the torrid sun and the world has been all trivial, ― 

    then at eve the sun goes down westward, 

    and the wind goes down with it, 

    and the dews begin to purify the air and make it transparent, 

    and the lakes and rivers acquire a glassy stillness, reflecting the skies, the reflex of the day.

I too am at the top of my condition for perceiving beauty.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 31, 1851

The pensive eve. See August 31, 1852 ("This is the most glorious part of this day, the serenest, warmest, brightest part, and the most suggestive . . . Evening is pensive. The serenity is far more remarkable to those who are on the water."); see also August 2, 1854 ("I feel the necessity of deepening the stream of my life. . .I am inclined now for a pensive evening walk."); August 11, 1853 ("The serene hour, the season of reflection! The pensive season."); May 17, 1853 ("Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The hour before sunset

August 31. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 31

The greater stillness

is favorable to thought –

pensive evening.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, pensive evening

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-510831

Now after sunset the river is full of light in the dark landscape

August 14

No rain, only the dusty road spotted with the few drops which fell last night, — but there is quite a high and cool wind this morning.

Since August came in, we have begun to have considerable wind, as not since May, at least.

The roads nowadays are covered with a light-colored, powdery dust (this yesterday), several inches deep, which also defiles the grass and weeds and bushes, and the traveller is deterred from stepping in it.

The dusty weeds and bushes leave their mark on your clothes.

Mountain-ash berries orange (?), and its leaves half yellowed in some places.


3 P.M. To climbing fern with E. Hoar. 

It takes a good deal of care and patience to unwind this ' fern without injuring it. Sometimes same frond is half leaf, half fruit.  E. talked of sending one such leaf to G. Bradford to remind him that the sun still shone in America.

The uva-ursi berries beginning to turn.

August 14, 2014

6 P.M. To Hubbard Bath and Fair Haven Hill.

I notice now that saw-like grass seed where the mowers have done.

The swamp blackberries are quite small and rather acid.

Though yesterday was quite a hot day, I find by bathing that the river grows steadily cooler, as yet for a fortnight, though we have had no rain here.  Is it owing solely to the cooler air since August came in, both day and night, or have rains in the southwest cooled the stream within a week?

I now, standing on the shore, see that in sailing or floating down a smooth stream at evening it is an advantage to the fancy to be thus slightly separated from the land.

It is to be slightly removed from the common- place of earth.

To float thus on the silver-plated stream is like embarking on a train of thought itself.

You are surrounded by water, which is full of reflections; and you see the earth at a distance, which is very agreeable to the imagination.



I see the blue smoke of a burning meadow.

The clethra must be one of the most conspicuous flowers not yellow at present.

I sit three-quarters up the hill.

The crickets creak strong and loud now after sunset. No word will spell it.  It is a short, strong, regular ringing sound, as of a thousand exactly together, — though further off some alternate, repeated regularly and in rapid time, perhaps twice in a second.

Methinks their quire is much fuller and louder than a fortnight ago.

Ah ! I need solitude.

I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, to behold and commune with something grander than man.

Their mere distance and unprofanedness is an infinite encouragement.

It is with infinite yearning and aspiration that I seek solitude, more and more resolved and strong; but with a certain genial weakness that I seek society ever.

I hear the nighthawk squeak and a whip-poor-will sing.

I hear the tremulous squealing scream of a screech owl in the Holden Woods, sounding somewhat like the neighing of a horse, not like the snipe.


Now at 7.45, perhaps a half-hour after sunset, the river is quite distinct and full of light in the dark landscape,  -- 

a silver strip of sky

of the same color and 

brightness with the sky.

As I go home by Hayden's I smell the burning meadow.

I love the scent.

It is my pipe.

I smoke the earth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 14, 1854

Mountain-ash berries orange (?) See July 28, 1859 ("Young purple finches eating mountain-ash berries (ours). "); August 25, 1859 ("Mountain-ash berries partly turned. Again see, I think, purple finch eating them.")

The uva-ursi berries beginning to turn. See July 16, 1855 ("Uva-ursi berries begin to redden."); September 21, 1856 ("Uva-ursi berries quite ripe.")

I find by bathing that the river grows steadily cooler. See August 12, 1854 ("I bathe at Hubbard's. The water is rather cool, comparatively."); September 6, 1854 ("Hubbard Bath . . . The water is again warmer than I should have believed; say an average summer warmth, yet not so warm as it has been. It makes me the more surprised that only that day and a half of rain should have made it so very cold when I last bathed here. "); September 12, 1854 ("bathing I find it colder again than on the 2d, so that I stay in but a moment. I fear that it will not again be warm."): September 24, 1854 (" It is now too cold to bathe with comfort."; September 26 1854 ("Took my last bath the 24th . Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, — to behold and commune with something grander than man. See December 27, 1851 ("The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while revolutions vex the world.");  June 5, 1854 ("I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature.”); July 24, 1853 ("On Fair Haven a quarter of an hour before sunset .. . .A golden sheen is reflected from the river so brightly, that it dazzles me as much as the sun . The now silver-plated river is burnished gold there,");  January 7, 1857 “This stillness, solitude, wildness of nature is . . . what I go out to seek. It is as if I always met in those places some grand, serene, immortal, infinitely encouraging, though invisible, companion, and walked with him”);  October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape, and I sit down to behold it at my leisure. I think that Concord affords no better view.")

August 14. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 14.

Now after sunset 

the river is full of light 

in the dark landscape

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, a silver strip of sky

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-540814

A Book of the Seasons: Asters in August

  

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau,

 April 18, 1852

Do not the flowers of August and September

generally resemble suns and stars?

August 6, 1853

So many asters

such bewildering beauty

and variety!

August 30, 1853

July 26. I mark again, about this time when the first asters open . . . This the afternoon of the year. July 26, 1853

July 28. Goldenrod and asters have fairly begun; there are several kinds of each out.  July 28, 1852

August 1.  Diplopappus cornifolius (how long?) at Conant Orchard Grove. August 1, 1855 

August 1.  Diplopappus umbellatus at Peter's wall. August 1, 1856 

August 3. Diplopappus cornifolius, some time. August 3, 1856

August 3. Savory-leaved aster. August 3, 1858

August 4 The yellow Bethlehem-star still, and the yellow gerardia, and a bluish "savory-leaved aster."  August 4, 1851

August 5. Aster dumosus, apparently a day or two, with its large conspicuous flower-buds at the end of the branchlets and linear-spatulate involucral scales. August 5, 1856 

August 9. What I have called Aster corymbosus [white wood aster] out a day, above Hemlocks. It has eight to twelve white rays, smaller than those of the macrophyllus, and a dull-red stem commonly.  August 9, 1856 

August 10.  Aster dumosus and pennyroyal out; how long? August 10, 1856 

August 11.  Aster corymbosus, path beyond Corner Spring and in Miles Swamp. August 11, 1852

August 11.  Aster Tradescanti, two or three days in low ground; flowers smaller than A. dumosus, densely racemed, with short peduncles or branchlets, calyx-scales narrower and more pointed. August 11, 1854

August 11. Aster puniceus a day or more. August 11, 1856

August 12. The common asters now are the patens, dumosus, Radula, and Diplopappus umbellatus.  August 12, 1854

August 12. The Aster patens is very handsome by the side of Moore's Swamp on the bank, — large flowers, more or less purplish or violet, each commonly (four or five) at the end of a long peduncle, three to six inches long, at right angles with the stem, giving it an open look. August 12, 1856

August 14.  Aster tradescanti, apparently a day or two. August 14, 1856

August 16. Diplopappus linariifolius, apparently several days. August 16, 1856

 

August 16, 2021

August 17. Aster miser some time, turned purple. A. longifolius not long. August 17, 1856

August 20. An aster with a smooth leaf narrowed below, somewhat like A. amplexicaulis (or patens (Gray) ?). Is it var. phlogifolius?  August 20, 1852

August 21. Some of the Hubbard aster are still left, against the upper Hubbard Wood by the shore, which the mowers omitted. August 21, 1854

August 21.  The commonest asters now are, 

• 1st, the Radula; 
• 2d, dumosus; 
• 3d, patens; 
• 4th, say puniceus; 
• 5th, cordtfolius; 
• 6th, macrophyllus; (these two a good while); 
• 7th, say Tradescanti; 
• 8th, miser; 
• 9th, longifolius ; (these three quite rare yet);
• 10th, probably acuminatus, some time (not seen); 
• 11th, undulatus; 
• 12th, loevis; (these two scarcely to be seen yet). 

N. B. Water so high I have not seen early meadow aster lately. August 21, 1856

August 22.  The savory-leaved aster (Diplopappus linariifolius) out; how long? Saw the Aster corymbosus on the 19th  August 22, 1859

August 24. The autumnal flowers, — goldenrods, asters, and johnswort, — though they have made demonstrations, have not yet commenced to reign. August 24, 1851

August 24. The asters and diplopappi are about in this order:

• (1) Radula,
• (2) D. cornifolius (?),
• (3) A. corymbosus,
• (4) patens,
• (5) lævis,
• (6) dumosus (?),
• (7) miser,
• (8) macrophyllus,
• (9) D. umbellatus,
• (10) A. acuminatus,
• (11) puniceus.

The patens (4), of various forms, some lilac, is the prevailing blue or bluish one now, middle sized and very abundant on dry hillsides and by wood paths; the lævis next. The 1st, or Radula, is not abundant. (These three are all the distinctly blue ones yet.) The dumosus is the prevailing white one, very abundant; miser mixed with it. D. umbellatus is conspicuous enough in some places (low grounds), and A. puniceus beginning to be so .But D. cornifolius, A. corymbosus, macrophyllus, and acuminatus are confined to particular localities.  Dumosus and patens (and perhaps lævis, not common enough) are the prevailing asters now. August 24, 1853

August 24. Aster puniceus and Diplopappus umbellatus, how long?  August 24, 1859

August 25. Passing over Tuttle’s farm . . . fire-weeds (senecio), thoroughwort, Eupatorium purpureum, and giant asters, etc., suggest a vigor in the soil. August 25, 1853

August 26.  Sail across to Bee Tree Hill. This hillside, laid bare two years ago and partly last winter, is almost covered with the Aster macrophyllus, now in its prime. It grows large and rank, two feet high. On one I count seventeen central flowers withered, one hundred and thirty in bloom, and half as many buds. As I looked down from the hilltop over the sprout-land, its rounded grayish tops amid the bushes I mistook for gray, lichen-clad rocks, such was its profusion and harmony with the scenery, like hoary rocky hilltops amid bushes. There were acres of it, densely planted. . . . I thought I was looking down on gray, lichen-clad rocky summits on which a few bushes thinly grew. These rocks were asters, single ones a foot over, many prostrate, and making a gray impression.  August 26, 1856

August 26. Aster loevis, how long?  August 26, 1858

August 27.  Aster undulatus. August 27, 1853

August 28.  The flowers I see at present are autumn flowers, such as have risen above the stubble in shorn fields since it was cut, whose tops have commonly been clipped by the scythe or the cow; or the late flowers, as asters and goldenrods, which grow in neglected fields and along ditches and hedgerows. August 28, 1859

August 28, 2014

August 30.  As I go along from the Minott house to the Bidens Brook, I am quite bewildered by the beauty and variety of the asters, now in their prime here. Why so many asters and goldenrods now? The sun has shone on the earth, and the goldenrod is his fruit. The stars, too, have shone on it, and the asters are their fruit. August 30, 1853

August 30. The Aster puniceusis hardly yet in prime; its great umbel-shaped tops not yet fully out. Its leaves are pretty generally whitened with mildew and unsightly. August 30, 1856

August 30. The prevailing flowers, considering both conspicuous- ness and numbers, at present time, as I think now:

• Solidagos, especially large three-ribbed, nemoralis, tall rough, etc. 
• Asters, especially Tradescanti, puniceus, corymbosus, dumosus, Diplopappus umbellatus 
• Tansy 
• Helianthuses, as Helianthus decapetalus, divaricatus, annum, etc.  . . .

August 30, 1859

August 31. The asters and goldenrods are now in their prime, I think . . . The Solidago altissima is now the prevailing one, i. e. goldenrod, in low grounds where the swamp has been cleared. It occupies acres, densely rising as high as your head, with the great white umbel-like tops of the Diplopappus umbellatus [Tall flat-top white aster]  rising above it. There are also intermixed Solidago stricta, erechthites (fire-weed), Aster puniceus and longifolius, . . .etc., etc. There has been no such rank flowering up to this. . . .Is that very dense-flowered small white aster with short branched racemes A. Tradescanti? — now begun to be conspicuous. A low aster by Brown's Ditch north of Sleepy Hollow like a Radula, but with narrower leaves and more numerous, and scales without herbaceous tips.  August 31, 1853

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Asters in August

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

 

At the east window

 

Sitting on this rock

wrestling with the melody

that possesses me.

The moon reflected

from the rippled surface like

a stream of dollars.

A distant piano –

the bare lichen-covered gray

rock in the moonlight.

At the east window

the clock strikes plainly ten or

eleven P.M.

Sobered by moonlight

sensing my own existence

who I am and where.

I am fitted to 

hear – my being moves in a 

sphere of melody.

zphx- 20240803

I have found all things thus far,

persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons,

strangely adapted to my resources.

Henry Thoreau, A Week (Wednesday)

*****

May 23, 1854 ("I sat for hours on rocks and wrestled with the melody which possessed me.")

July 8, 1854 ("The moon reflected from the rippled surface like a stream of dollars.")

August 3, 1852 (" At the east window. — A temperate noon. I hear a cricket creak in the shade; also the sound of a distant piano. . . . At length the melody steals into my being . . . By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, my being moves in a sphere of melody.")

January 1, 1852 ("Perhaps the only thing that spoke to me on this walk was the bare, lichen-covered gray rock at the Cliff, in the moonlight, naked and almost warm as in summer.")

April 18, 1852 ("An east wind. I hear the clock strike plainly ten or eleven P.M."); 

May 3, 1852 ("The clock strikes distinctly, showing the wind is easterly. There is a grand, rich, musical echo trembling on the air long after the clock has ceased to strike, like a vast organ, filling the air with a trembling music like a flower of sound.")

August 5, 1851 ("As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where; as my walls contract, I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment and I see who the company are. With the coolness and the mild silvery light, I recover some sanity, my thoughts are more distinct, moderated, and tempered. Reflection is more possible . . . I am sobered by the moonlight.")

See also: 

A Book of the Seasons,, Nature is genial to man
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A body awake in the world.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I am a rock

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, At the east window

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-eastwindow