A fog this morning. Our peach out.
P. M. — To beeches.
As I sat by the Riordan crossing, thought it was the tanager I heard? I think now, only because it is so early, that it may have been the yellow-throat vireo. [No; it must have been a tanager, which I hear frequently the 19th.]
Northern wild red cherry out, out by railroad; maybe day or two elsewhere.
At Heywood Spring I see a clumsy woodchuck, now, at 4 P. M., out feeding, gray or grizzly above, brown beneath. It runs, or waddles, to its hole two or three rods off, and as usual pauses, listening, at its entrance till I start again, then dives in.
Viola cucullata abundant now.
Just on the brink of this Heywood Spring, I find what may be the Stellaria borealis (if it is not the longifolia, but it is not in cymes like that; only a single flower to each axil, now at least), though Bigelow makes its calyx-divisions nerve-less. These are three-nerved, and one flower, at least, has five styles. It has been out perhaps several days. Some of the flowers are without petals, others with those very deeply cleft or divided white petals. The others may have pollen.
Strawberry well out; how long?
On Amelanchier Botryapium, many narrow dark bronze-colored beetles (say three fourths inch long) coupled and at same time eating the flowers, calyx and all.
Night-warbler.
Hickory leafets not so large as beech. Beech leaves two inches long. Say it has leafed a day or two.
White birch pollen. Beech not out yet.
Checker-berries very abundant on south side of Pine Hill, by pitch pine wood. Now is probably best time to gather them.
Cleared out the Beech Spring, which is a copious one. So I have done some service, though it was a wet and muddy job. Cleared out a spring while you have been to the wars. Now that warmer days make the traveller thirsty, this becomes an important work.
This spring was filled and covered with a great mass of beech leaves, amid and beneath which, damp and wet as they were, were myriads of snow-fleas and also their white exuviae; the latter often whitening a whole leaf, mixed with live ones. It looks as if for coolness and moisture — which the snow had afforded — they were compelled to take refuge here.
Cerasus pumila, south side Pine Hill, not yet by Cut Woods.
Perceive some of that delicious meadow fragrance coming over the railroad causeway.
Measured a chestnut stump cut last winter on Pine Hill; twenty five inches in diameter and fifty-six rings.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 15, 1856
The tanager I heard? See May 13, 1853 (“Methinks I hear and see the tanager now.”); May 16, 1859 ("Hear a tanager to-day, and one was seen yesterday."); May 18, 1851("The scarlet tanagers are come.”). May 19, 1856 (“The tanager is now heard plainly and frequently.”); See also May 20, 1858 (“See tanagers, male and female, in the top of a pine, one red, other yellow, from below. We have got to these high colors among birds”); May 23, 1853 (“At Loring's Wood heard and saw a tanager. That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky! Even when I have heard his note and look for him and find the bloody fellow, sitting on a dead twig of a pine, I am always startled. . ..That incredible red, with the green and blue, .. . .I am transported; these are not the woods I ordinarily walk in. . . .How he enhances the wildness and wealth of the woods!”)May 24, 1860 ("You can hardly believe that a living creature can wear such colors.”); May 28, 1855 (" I see a tanager, the most brilliant and tropical-looking bird we have, bright-scarlet with black wings, the scarlet appearing on the rump again between wing-tips. He brings heat, or heat him. A remarkable contrast with the green pines.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Scarlet Tanager in May
Northern wild red cherry out, out by railroad [pin cherry (Prunus pensylvaticus] See May 5, 1855 ("The trees and shrubs which I observe to make a show now with their green . . .in the order of their intensity and generalness — . . . Choke-cherry shoots . . . young black cherry, . . . probably wild red cherry in some places,. . . cultivated cherry") ; May 10, 1858 ("The northern wild red cherry by Everett's, apparently to-morrow."); July 13, 1852 ("The northern wild red cherry of the woods is ripe, handsome, bright red, but scarcely edible; also, sooner than I expected, ")
[A woodchuck] runs, or waddles, to its hole two or three rods off, and as usual pauses, listening, at its entrance. See April 29, 1855 ("I see a woodchuck . . . He runs to within three feet of his hole; then stops, with his head up.")
Viola cucullata abundant now. See May 3, 1856 (" Viola cucullata, how long?"); May 16, 1852 (“I observe some very pale blue Viola cuculata in the meadows.”); May 19, 1858 (“There appears to be quite a variety in the colors of the Viola cucullata. Some dark-blue, if not lilac (?), some with a very dark blue centre and whitish circumference, others dark-blue within and dark without, others all very pale blue.”); May 31, 1858 (“To-day a white V. cucullata. ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets
I find what may be the Stellaria borealis [boreal starwort/stitchwort](if it is not the longifolia [long-leaved stitchwort], but it is not in cymes like that; only a single flower to each axil, now at least) See May 21, 1856 ("At the trough near Turnpike, near Hosmer’s Spring, the (perhaps) Stellaria borealis of the 15th. I am still in doubt whether it is a stellaria or cerastium. This is quite smooth, four to five inches high, spreading and forking,with a single flower each fork, on a long peduncle. . . Can it be Stellaria longipes?"); May 23, 1856 ("The stellaria at Heywood Spring must be the same with that near the E. Hosmer Spring, though the former has commonly fewer styles and rather slenderer leaves. It appears to be the S. borealis, though the leaves are narrowly lanceolate; has three to seven styles; a few petals (cleft almost to the bottom) or none; pods, some larger than the calyx and apparently ten-ribbed; petals, now about the length of the sepals."); June 8, 1856 ("Stellaria longrfolia opposite Barbarea Shore not yet out. It is obviously different from what I call S. borealis."); See also June 6, 1854 ("The Stellaria longifolia has been out, apparently, a day or two."); May 19, 1858 ("Stellaria borealis well out, apparently several days."); June 6, 1859 ("Stellaria longifolia, at Well Meadow Head, how long?"); May 29, 1860 ("Saw, in a shaded swamp beyond, the Stellaria borealis, still out, — large, broadish leaves.")
On Amelanchier Botryapium, many narrow dark bronze-colored beetles . .. eating the flowers, calyx and all. See May 15, 1858 ("The shad-bush in bloom is now conspicuous, its white flags on all sides. Is it not the most massy and conspicuous of any wild plant now in bloom? ") See also
May 17, 1853 ("The petals have already fallen from the Amelanchier Botryapium, and young berries are plainly forming."); May 19, 1854 ("With what unobserved secure dispatch nature advances! The amelanchiers have bloomed, and already both kinds have shed their blossoms and show minute green fruit. There is not an instant's pause!")
Hickory leafets not . . . two inches long. See May 8, 1853 ("Some hickory buds are nearly two inches long."); May 14, 1855 ("Some hickories, just opening their leaves, make quite a show with the red inner sides of the bud-scales turned back."); May 17, 1853 ("How red are the scales of some hickory buds, now turned back!"); May 18, 1851 ("The hickory buds are almost leaves."); May 24, 1860 ("I notice the first shadows of hickories, - not dense and dark shade, but open-latticed, a network of sun and shadow on the north sides of the trees . . ., I see a tanager holding by the tender leafets , now five inches long "); May 26, 1857 ("The very sudden expansion of the great hickory buds, umbrella-wise."); May 29, 1857 (“ Suddenly the buds burst, and those large pinnate leaves stretched forth in various directions.”)
Beech leaves two inches long. See May 4, 1855 ("The beech leaf-buds are . . . nearly an inch and a half long and very slender . . . will open, apparently, in three or four days. The blossom-buds are still larger; may bloom in eight days.")
White birch pollen. May 13, 1855 ("One white birch sheds pollen. The white birches on the side of Ponkawtasset are beginning to show faint streaks of yellowish green here and there. ")
Checker-berries very abundant . . .best time to gather them. See May 21, 1857 ("I find checkerberries still fresh and abundant. Last year was a remarkable one for them. They lurk under the low leaves, scarcely to be detected . . . dark-scarlet berries, some of them half an inch in diameter, broad pear-shaped, of a pale or hoary pink color beneath.") Note: “checkerberry" is another name for American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). See Checkerberry cum Wintergreen. and GoBotany. What HDT calls “wintergreen” is Chimaphila umbellata, a/k/a pipsissewa,
Cerasus pumila, south side Pine Hill, not yet by Cut Woods. See May 16, 1859 ("Sand cherry out."); May 22, 1855 ("Cerasus pumila in full bloom."); see also July 28, 1856 ("Sand cherry ripe. The fruit droops in umble-like clusters, two to four peduncles together, on each side the axil of a branchlet or a leaf.") ; August 10, 1860 ("Sand cherry is well ripe — some of it — and tolerable, better than the red cherry or choke-cherry.")
Perceive some of that delicious meadow fragrance coming over the railroad causeway. See May 6, 1855 ("that unaccountable fugacious fragrance, as of all flowers,”); May 27, 1855 ("The meadow fragrance to-day”); May 27, 1856 ("perceived the meadow fragrance”); May 27, 1857 ("I perceived that rare meadow fragrance on the 25th.”); June 3, 1860 ("I perceive the meadow fragrance.”)
May 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 15
See for a moment
a warbler with blue-slate head
all yellow beneath.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Peach, strawberry and cherry
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
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560515
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