P. M. — By path around Walden. With this little snow of the 29th ult. there is yet pretty good sledding, for it lies solid.
Slate-colored snowbirds flit before me in the path, feeding on the seeds on the snow, the countless little brown seeds that begin to be scattered over the snow, so much the more obvious to bird and beast.
A hundred kinds of indigenous grain are harvested now, broadcast upon the surface of the snow. Thus at a critical season these seeds are shaken down on to a clean white napkin, unmixed with dirt and rubbish, and off this the little pensioners pick them. Their clean table is thus spread a few inches or feet above the ground.
Will wonder become extinct in me? Shall I become insensible as a fungus?
A ridge of earth, with the red cockscomb lichen on it, peeps out still at the rut's edge.
The dear wholesome color of shrub oak leaves, so clean and firm, not decaying, but which have put on a kind of immortality, not wrinkled and thin like the white oak leaves, but full-veined and plump, as nearer earth. Well-tanned leather on the one side, sun-tanned, color of colors, color of the cow and the deer, silver-downy beneath, turned toward the late bleached and russet fields.
What are acanthus leaves and the rest to this? Emblem of my winter condition.
I love and could embrace the shrub oak with its scanty garment of leaves rising above the snow, lowly whispering to me, akin to winter thoughts, and sunsets, and to all virtue. Covert which the hare and the partridge seek, and I too seek.
What cousin of mine is the shrub oak?
Will wonder become extinct in me? Shall I become insensible as a fungus?
A ridge of earth, with the red cockscomb lichen on it, peeps out still at the rut's edge.
The dear wholesome color of shrub oak leaves, so clean and firm, not decaying, but which have put on a kind of immortality, not wrinkled and thin like the white oak leaves, but full-veined and plump, as nearer earth. Well-tanned leather on the one side, sun-tanned, color of colors, color of the cow and the deer, silver-downy beneath, turned toward the late bleached and russet fields.
What are acanthus leaves and the rest to this? Emblem of my winter condition.
I love and could embrace the shrub oak with its scanty garment of leaves rising above the snow, lowly whispering to me, akin to winter thoughts, and sunsets, and to all virtue. Covert which the hare and the partridge seek, and I too seek.
What cousin of mine is the shrub oak?
How can any man suffer long? For a sense of want is a prayer, and all prayers are answered.
Rigid as iron, clean as the atmosphere, hardy as virtue, innocent and sweet as a maiden is the shrub oak. In proportion as I know and love it, I am natural and sound as a partridge.
I felt a positive yearning toward one bush this afternoon. There was a match found for me at last. I fell in love with a shrub oak.
Tenacious of its leaves, which shrivel not but retain a certain wintry life in them, firm shields, painted in fast colors a rich brown.
The deer mouse, too, knows the shrub oak and has its hole in the snow by the shrub oak's stem.
Now, too, I remark in many places ridges and fields of fine russet or straw-colored grass rising above the snow, and beds of empty straw-colored heads of everlasting and ragged-looking Roman wormwood.
The blue-curls' chalices stand empty, and waiting evidently to be filled with ice.
No, I am a stranger in your towns. I am not at home at French's, or Lovejoy's, or Savery's. I can winter more to my mind amid the shrub oaks. I have made arrangements to stay with them.
The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch. Tough to support the snow, not broken down by it. Well-nigh useless to man. A sturdy phalanx, hard to break through. Product of New England's surface. Bearing many striped acorns.
Well named shrub oak. Low, robust, hardy, indigenous. Well known to the striped squirrel and the partridge and rabbit. The squirrel nibbles its nuts sitting upon an old stump of its larger cousins.
How many rents I owe to you! how many eyes put out! how many bleeding fingers! How many shrub oak patches I have been through, stooping, winding my way, bending the twigs aside, guiding myself by the sun, over hills and valleys and plains, resting in clear grassy spaces!
I love to go through a patch of shrub oak in a bee-line, where you tear your clothes and put your eyes out.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 1, 1856
I love and could embrace the shrub oak with its scanty garment of leaves rising above the snow, lowly whispering to me . See November 21, 1850 ("Seeing the sun falling . . .in an angle where this forest meets a hill covered with shrub oaks, affects me singularly, reinspiring me with all the dreams of my youth. It is a place far away, yet actual and where I have been. It is like looking into dreamland. It is one of the avenues to my future.”); April 26, 1852 ("Rambled amid the shrub oak hills beyond Hayden's. Lay on the dead grass in a cup-like hollow sprinkled with half-dead low shrub oaks. . . . It is a dull, rain dropping and threatening afternoon, inclining to drowsiness. I feel as if I could go to sleep under a hedge. The landscape wears a subdued tone, quite soothing to the feelings; no glaring colors.")
Shrub oak. Scrub or Bear oak (Quercus ilicifolia), one of the smaller and more gnarled oaks in New England, absent from the northern portions of northern New England. Rarely exceeding 12-20 feet this species does not tolerate shade and is among the first to recolonize dry sites that have been repeatedly cut-over or burned. It sprouts prolifically after fire burns away its above-ground parts. GoBotany Its leaves are a distinguishing feature; the second set of lobes from the base tend to be much larger than the others. Forest Trees of Vermont See November 25, 1858 (“Most shrub oaks there have lost their leaves (Quercus ilicifolia), which, very fair and perfect, cover the ground.”); January 19, 1859 ("Gathered a scarlet oak acorn . . .with distinct fine dark stripes or rays, such as a Quercus ilicifolia has.")
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 1, 1856
I love and could embrace the shrub oak with its scanty garment of leaves rising above the snow, lowly whispering to me . See November 21, 1850 ("Seeing the sun falling . . .in an angle where this forest meets a hill covered with shrub oaks, affects me singularly, reinspiring me with all the dreams of my youth. It is a place far away, yet actual and where I have been. It is like looking into dreamland. It is one of the avenues to my future.”); April 26, 1852 ("Rambled amid the shrub oak hills beyond Hayden's. Lay on the dead grass in a cup-like hollow sprinkled with half-dead low shrub oaks. . . . It is a dull, rain dropping and threatening afternoon, inclining to drowsiness. I feel as if I could go to sleep under a hedge. The landscape wears a subdued tone, quite soothing to the feelings; no glaring colors.")
Shrub oak. Scrub or Bear oak (Quercus ilicifolia), one of the smaller and more gnarled oaks in New England, absent from the northern portions of northern New England. Rarely exceeding 12-20 feet this species does not tolerate shade and is among the first to recolonize dry sites that have been repeatedly cut-over or burned. It sprouts prolifically after fire burns away its above-ground parts. GoBotany Its leaves are a distinguishing feature; the second set of lobes from the base tend to be much larger than the others. Forest Trees of Vermont See November 25, 1858 (“Most shrub oaks there have lost their leaves (Quercus ilicifolia), which, very fair and perfect, cover the ground.”); January 19, 1859 ("Gathered a scarlet oak acorn . . .with distinct fine dark stripes or rays, such as a Quercus ilicifolia has.")
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