The advantage of going abroad

September 21 

September 21, 2015

P. M. — To Cliffs. 

Asclepias Cornuti discounting. The seeded parachutes which I release soon come to earth, but probably if they waited for a stronger wind to release them they would be carried far. 

Solidago nemoralis mostly done. 

Aster undulatus in prime, in the dry woods just beyond Hayden's, large slanting, pyramidal panicles of some lilac-tinged, others quite white, flowers, size of Diplopappus linariifolius. 

Solidago altissima past prime. 

Prinos berries. 

I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year. 

A. dumosus past prime. 

Am surprised to see on top of Cliffs, where Wheeler burned in the spring and had cut rye, by a large rock, some very large perfectly fresh Corydalis glauca, still well in bloom as well as gone to seed, two and a half feet high and five eighths of an inch thick at base. There are also many large tufts of its glaucous leaves on the black burnt ground which have not come to flower, amid the rye stubble. The bumblebees are sucking its flowers. 

Beside the young oak and the sprouts, poke-weed, erechthites, and this corydalis even are common there. How far is this due to the fire, aside from the clearing? 

Was not the fireweed seed sown by the wind last fall, blown into the woods, where there was a lull which caused it to settle? Perhaps it is fitted to escape or resist fire. The wind which the fire creates may, perchance, lift it again out of harm's way.

The Asclepias obtusifolia is turned yellow. I see its often perfectly upright slender pod five inches long. It soon bursts in my chamber and shows its beautiful straw- colored lining. A fairy-like casket, shaped like a canoe, with its closely packed imbricated brown seeds, with their yet compressed silvery parachutes like finest unsoiled silk in the right position above them, ready to be wafted some dry and breezy day to their destined places. 

On top of Cliff, behind the big stump, a yellow white goldenrod, var. concolor, which Gray refers to Pennsylvania, apparently with the common. That is a great place for white goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees. 

Scare up turtle doves in the stubble. Uva-ursi berries quite ripe. 

Find, for first time in Concord, Solanum nigrum, berries apparently just ripe, by a rock northwest of corydalis. Thus I have within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable [you] to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange. 

It is a warm and very hazy day, with wreaths of mist in horizon.

See, in the cow-killer on railroad, a small mountain-ash naturalized!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1856

Asclepias Cornuti discounting . . . if they waited for a stronger wind to release them they would be carried far. See September 10, 1860 ("If you sit at an open attic window almost anywhere, about the 20th of September, you will see many a milkweed down go sailing by on a level with you, though commonly it has lost its freight, — notwithstanding that you may not know of any of these plants growing in your neighborhood.");   October 8, 1851 ("The milkweed seeds must be carried far, for it is only when a strong wind is blowing that they are loosened from their pods.") 

Milkweed seeds loosen

only when a strong wind blows –

so they carry far.

 October 8, 1851 

October 19, 1856 ("The Asclepias Cornuti pods are now apparently in the midst of discounting.");   October 23, 1852 ("The milkweed (Syriaca) now rapidly discounting . . .the seeds spring out on the least jar, or when dried by the sun, and form a little fluctuating white silky mass or tuft, each held by the extremities of the fine threads, until a stronger puff of wind sets them free"); October 25, 1858 ("Near the end of the causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting."); November 20, 1858 ("The common milkweed (Asclepias Cornuti) and some thistles still discounting.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Milkweed.

Late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery . . . See September 21, 1854 (" Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher."); September 19, 1858 ("Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chewink  (Rufous-sided Towhee)

White goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees. See August 12, 1852 ("Solidago bicolor, white goldenrod, apparently in good season");  August 21, 1856 ("The bicolor, just begun in some places. "); October 2, 1856 ("Solidago bicolor considerably past prime"); Octpber 8, 1856 ("S. bicolor in some places, are common still");   October 11, 1856 ("The white goldenrod is still common here, and covered with bees.");  October 26, 1852 ("The blue-stemmed and white goldenrod apparently survive till winter. – push up and blossom anew.") 

Within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. See September 10, 1856 ("Descending the steep south end of this hill [Fall Mountain near Bellow Falls], I saw an apparent Corydalis glauca . . .  By the railroad below, the Solanum nigrum, with white flowers but yet green fruit.") See also September 22, 1859 ("The Solanum nigrum, which is rare in Concord, with many flowers and green fruit.")

Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange. See March 11, 1856 ("Only that travelling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better"); August 6, 1851 ("It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate."); September 19, 1853 ("[the Maine woods] I looked very narrowly at the vegetation as we glided along close to the shore. . . that I might see what was primitive about our Concord River."); September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood . . . prepared for strange things.");  September 19, 1856 ("Am surprised to find the Polygonum Pennsylvanicum abundant, by the roadside near the bank. First saw it the other day at Brattleboro."); November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else.")

September 21. See A Book of the Seasons: September 21

It is a warm and 

very hazy day – wreaths of 

mist in horizon.

You first detect your

own plants when abroad – because 

looking for the strange.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The advantage of going abroad

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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