The yellow afternoon of the year.

August 12

To Conantum by boat.  To-day there is an uncommonly strong wind, against which I row, yet in shirt-sleeves, trusting to sail back. It is southwest.

August 12, 2913

The Bidens Beckii yellows the side of the river just below the Hubbard Path, but is hardly yet in fullest flower generally. 

I see goldfinches nowadays on the lanceolate thistles, apparently after the seeds. 

It takes all the heat of the year to produce these yellow flowers. It is the 3 o'clock p. m. of the year when they begin to prevail, — when the earth has absorbed most heat, when melons ripen and early apples and peaches.  It is already the yellowing year.

Viburnum nudum berries generally green, but some, higher and more exposed, of a deep, fiery pink on one cheek and light green on the other, and a very few dark purple or without bloom, black already. I put a bunch with only two or three black ones in my hat, the rest pink or green. When I got home more than half were turned black, — and ripe !! A singularly sudden chemical change. They are a very pretty, irregularly elliptical berry, one side longer than the other, and particularly interesting on account of the mixture of light-green, deep-pink, and dark-purple, and also withered berries, in the same cyme. 

The wind is autumnal and at length compels me to put on my coat. 

I bathe at Hubbard's. The water is rather cool, comparatively. 

As I look down-stream from southwest to northeast, I see the red under sides of the white lily pads about half exposed, turned up by the wind to [an] angle of 45 ° or more. These hemispherical red shields are so numerous as to produce a striking effect on the eye, as of an endless array of forces with shields advanced; sometimes four or five rods in width. 

Off Holden Woods a baffling counter wind as usual (when I return), but looking up-stream I see the great undulations extending into the calm from above, where the wind blows steadily. 

There are but few haymakers left in the meadows.

The woodbine on rocks in warm and dry places is now more frequently turned, a few leafets bright-scarlet. 

The now quite common goldenrods fully out are what I have called stricta and also the more strict puberula (?). The arguta and odora are not abundant enough to make an impression. The Solidago nemoralis is not yet generally out. 

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

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 12, 1854

To Conantum by boat. See August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.”)\

Strong wind, against which I row, . . . trusting to sail back. See May 28, 1855 ("Yesterday left my boat at the willow opposite this [Conantum] Cliff, the wind northwest. Now it is southeast, and I can sail back.")

The Bidens Beckii yellows the side of the river just below the Hubbard Path, but is hardly yet in fullest flower generally. See August 30,1854 ("The Bidens Beckii made the best show, I think, a week ago, though there may be more of them open now."). See also September 14, 1854 ("The Bidens Beckii is drowned or dried up, and has given place to the great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii

I see goldfinches nowadays. See  August 9, 1856 ("Does the [goldfinch] always utter his twitter when ascending? These are already feeding on the thistle seeds."); August 13, 1854 ("I see where the pasture thistles have apparently been picked to pieces (for their seeds? by the goldfinch?)"); August 14, 1858 ("The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it."); August 15, 1854 ("On the top of the Hill I see the goldfinch eating the seeds of the Canada thistle. I rarely approach a bed of them or other thistles nowadays but I hear the cool twitter of the goldfinch about it.") See alss A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

The red under sides of the white lily pads. See June 29, 1852 ("This is one of the aspects of the river now."); June 30, 1859 (" this not a fall phenomenon yet."August 24,1854 (" It is not till August, methinks, that they are turned up conspicuously.”)

It is the 3 o'clock p. m. of the year . . . when the earth has absorbed most heat, when melons ripen . . .It is already the yellowing year. See July 26, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year."); August 10, 1853 ("That month, surely, is distinguished when melons ripen. July could not do it."); August 19, 1853 ("The day is an epitome of the year."); August 23, 1853 "I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day – say an August day – and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year.”); Walden, "Spring" ("The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer.")

Viburnum nudum berries generally green. See August 10, 1853 ("What a moist, fertile heat now! I see naked viburnum berries beginning to turn. Their whiteness faintly blushing."); August 15, 1852 ("Some naked viburnum berries are quite dark purple amid the red, while other bunches are wholly green yet."); August 24, 1851 ("Is that the naked viburnum, so common, with its white, red, then purple berries, in Hubbard's meadow?"); August 24, 1852 ("The Viburnum nudum shows now rich, variegated clusters amid its handsome, firm leaves, bright rosy-cheeked ones mingled with dark-purple.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum

The wind is autumnal and at length compels me to put on my coat. See August 6, 1854 ("The sun is quite hot to-day, but the wind is cool and I question if my thin coat will be sufficient. Methinks that after this date there is commonly a vein of coolness in the wind. ")

I bathe at Hubbard's. The water is rather cool, comparatively. See August 14, 1854 ("Though yesterday was quite a hot day, I find by bathing that the river grows steadily cooler, "): September 2, 1854 ("Bathe at Hubbard’s. The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably"); September 12, 1854 ("I find it colder again than on the 2d, so that I stay in but a moment."); September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

Off Holden Woods a baffling counter wind as usual. See August 6, 1854 ("The wind is very unsteady and flirts our sail about to this side and that.")

There are but few haymakers left in the meadows. See August 17, 1851 ("The hayer's work is done, but I hear no boasting, no firing of guns nor ringing of bells. He celebrates it by going about the work he had postponed "till after haying"") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

The woodbine on rocks in warm and dry places is now more frequently turned, a few leafets bright-scarlet. See July 28, 1852 ("I observed some leaves of woodbine . . . turned a beautiful bright red, perhaps from heat and drought"): August 11, 1852 ("Woodbine is reddening in some places, and ivy too."); September 9, 1858 ("Woodbine scarlet, like a brilliant scarf on high, wrapped around the stem of a green tree."); September 12, 1851 ("What we call woodbine is the Vitis hederacea, or common creeper, or American ivy.")

The now quite common goldenrods fully out are what I have called stricta and also the more strict puberula. See August 21, 1856 ("the prevailing solidagos now are, lst, stricta (the upland and also meadow one which I seem to have called puberula), 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea"); September 11, 1857 (Solidago puberula apparently in prime, with the S. stricta, . . . my old S. stricta (early form) must be S. arguta var. juncea. It is now done."); September 15, 1856 ("Early Solidago stricta (that is, arguta) done.")

The common asters now are the patens, dumosus, Radula See August 12, 1856 ("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.”); See also August 21, 1856 ("The commonest asters now are, 1st, the Radula; 2d, dumosus; 3d, patens") and July 26, 1853 ("I mark again, about this time when the first asters open . . . This the afternoon of the year.")

August 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 12.

The Bidens Beckii

yellows the side of the river –

the yellowing year.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The yellow afternoon of the year.

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

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