The changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor.

August 14 

P. M. — To Flint's Pond via Saw Mill Brook. 

Aster tradescanti, apparently a day or two. 

Hypopitys, just beyond the last large (two-stemmed) chestnut at Saw Mill Brook, about done. Apparently a fungus like plant. It erects itself in seed. 

Gymnadenia nearer the brook, how long? 

Is that slender erect shrub near oak stump at Saw Mill Cornus circinate?  

Solidago odora abundantly out. 

The low wood-paths are strewn with toadstools now, and I begin to perceive their musty scent, — crowding one another by the path-side when there was not a fellow in sight.

The recent heavy rains have caused many leaves to fall, especially chestnut. They already spot the ground, rapidly yellowing and very handsomely spotted. I never weary of their colors. I see those eye-spots on the low hickory leaves also. All the Flint's Pond wood-paths are strewn with these gay-spotted chestnut leaves, and the changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor. 

Sedum Telephium, some time. Flowering blackberry still. 

A short elliptic-leaved Lespedeza violacea, loose and open in Veery Nest Path, at Flint's Pond. In press. 

On roadside heap at Emerson's, a portulaca with leaves one inch wide and seven petals (!) instead of five.

Meet a little boy with six young blind mice in his hat, which Horatio Watts has given [him]. He did not find them till he came to fork over and turn the hay. There were six of these little brown blind meadow mice (I suppose Arvicola hirsutus?), with short tails and blunt muzzles and great heads, looking like little bull-dogs. The nest was open on the surface amid the roots of the grass; of dried grass, like a bird's, three and a half inches [in] diameter, with a gallery or two leading from it. Watts said these were the kind that clung to the mother! But why did they not? Sometimes find nine of them. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 14, 1856

Hypopitys . . . about done. Apparently a fungus like plant. It erects itself in seed. See June 29, 1853 (“American pine-sap, just pushing up, — false beech- drops. Gray says from June to August. It is cream-colored or yellowish under the pines in Hubbard's Wood Path. Some near the fence east of the Close. A plant related to the tobacco-pipe.”);  July 8, 1857 ("Edith Emerson . . .[s]ays she has seen the pine-sap this year in Concord.”);  August 13, 1858 ("Hypopytis abundantly out (how long ?), apparently a good while . . .Very little indeed is yet erect, and that which is not is apparently as forward as the rest.");  September 9, 1857 ("C. brings me a small red hypopitys. It has a faint sweet, earthy, perhaps checkerberry, scent, like that sweet mildewy fragrance of the earth in spring.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Pine-sap and Indian-pipe

Gymnadenia nearer the brook, how long? See July 12, 1853 ("The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook will soon flower. ")

The low wood-paths are strewn with toadstools now. See August 14, 1853 ("In the low woodland paths full of rank weeds, there are countless great fungi of various forms and colors . . .”).  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Season for Fungi Compare August 14, 1854 ("The roads nowadays are covered with a light-colored, powdery dust several inches deep,”)

The changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor. See August 19, 1856 ("Now for spotted aralia leaves, brown pupils with yellow iris amid the green."); September 6, 1854 ("The sarsaparilla leaves, green or reddish, are spotted with yellow eyes centred with reddish, or dull-reddish eyes with yellow iris. They have a very pretty effect held over the forest floor.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis)

A short elliptic-leaved Lespedeza violacea, loose and open in Veery Nest Path . See  August 4, 1856 ("Lespedeza violacea, perhaps the largest-leafed variety, . . . well out .”); August 5, 1855 ("The common small violet lespedeza out, elliptic leaved, one inch long.”); August 13, 1856 (“In Bittern Cliff Woods that (apparently) very oblong elliptical leafed Lespedeza violacea, growing very loose and open on a few long petioles, one foot high by four or five inches wide.”); August 17, 1852 ("Lespedeza violacea var. (apparently) angustifolia (?), sessiliflora of Bigelow.")

There were six of these little brown blind meadow mice (I suppose Arvicola hirsutus?), with short tails and blunt muzzles. See August 25, 1858 (“The short-tailed meadow mouse, or Arvicola hirsuta.  Generally above,  it is very dark brown, almost blackish, being browner forward. It is also dark beneath. Tail but little more than one inch long . . . Its nose is not sharp.”) See  also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

Six brown blind mice

with short tails and blunt muzzles  –

     a little boy's hat.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Changing sarsaparilla leaves 

 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

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