Minott says he is seventy-five years old.

September 30.

Ground white with frost this morning. 

P. M. — To Walden. 

Young oaks generally reddening, etc., etc. Rhus Toxicodendron turned yellow and red, handsomely dotted with brown. 

At Wheeler's Wood by railroad, heard a cat owl hoot ing at 3.30 P.M., which was repeatedly answered by another some forty rods off. 

Talked with Minott, who was sitting, as usual, in his wood-shed. His hen and chickens, finding it cold these nights on the trees behind the house, had begun last night to roost in the shed, and one by one walked or hopped up a ladder within a foot of his shoulder to the loft above. He sits there so much like a fixture that they do not regard him. It has got to be so cool, then, that tender chickens seek a shelter at night; but I saw the hens at Clark's (the R. Brown house) were still going to roost in the apple trees. 

M. asks the peddlers if they’ve got anything that’ll cure the rheumatism, and often buys a wash of them. 

I was telling him how some crows two or three weeks ago came flying with a scolding caw toward me as I stood on “Cornel Rock,” and alighted within fifty feet on a dead tree above my head, unusually bold. Then away go all but one, perchance, to a tall pine in the swamp, twenty rods off; anon he follows. Again they go quite out of sight amid the tree-tops, leaving one behind. This one, at last, quite at his leisure, flaps away cawing, knowing well where to find his mates, though you might think he must winter alone. 

Minott said that as he was going over to Lincoln one day thirty or forty years ago, taking his way through Ebby Hubbard's woods, he heard a great flock of crows cawing over his head, and one alighted just within gunshot. He raised his little gun marked London, which he knew would fetch down anything that was within gunshot, and down came the crow; but he was not killed, only so filled with shot that he could not fly. 

As he was going by John Wyman’s at the pond, with the live crow in his hand, Wyman asked him what he was going to do with that crow, to which he answered, “Nothing in particular,”—he happened to alight within gunshot, and so he shot him. Wyman said that he’d like to have him. “What do you want to do with him?” asked M. “If you’ll give him to me, I’ll tell you,” said the other. To which Minott said, “You may have him and welcome.” 

Wyman then proceeded to inform him that the crows had eaten a great space in Josh Jones the blacksmith's corn-field, which Minott had passed just below the almshouse, and that Jones had told him that if he could kill a crow in his corn-field he would give him half a bushel of rye. He could guess what he wanted the crow for. So Wyman took the crow and the next time he went into town he tossed him over the wall into the corn-field and then shot him, and, carrying the dead crow to Jones, he got his half-bushel of rye. 

[Here, and at several following points, matter relative to the recent Maine excursion is omitted as having been already used in “The Maine Woods.”] 

The mist and mizzling rain there [at Mt. Kineo, Moosehead Lake.] was like the sparkling dust of amethysts. 

The Watsons tell me that Uncle Ned uses the expression “a glade” for the sheen of the moon on the water, which is, I see, according to Bailey, being from kAdôos, a branch. Helps thinks “a glade” such a path through a forest as an army would cut with a sword. . . . 

What poor crack-brains we are! easily upset and unable to take care of ourselves! If there were a precipice at our doors, some would be found jumping off to-day for fear that, if they survived, they might jump off to-morrow.

Consider what actual phenomena await us. To say nothing of life, which may be rare and difficult to detect, and death, which is startling enough, we cannot begin to conceive of anything so surprising and thrilling but that something more surprising may be actually presented to us. . . . 

According to the Upanishads, “As water, when rained down on elevated ground, runs scattered off in the valleys, so ever runs after difference a person who beholds attributes different (from the soul).” “As pure water, which is thrown down on pure ground, remains alike, so also, O Gautama, is the soul of the thinker who knows.” 

Minott says he is seventy-five years old. Minott said he had seen a couple of pigeons go over at last, as he sat in his shed. At first he thought they were doves, but he soon saw that they were pigeons, they flew so straight and fast. 

He says that that tall clock which still ticks in the corner belonged to old John Beatton, who died before he was born; thought it was two hundred years old!! Some of the rest of the furniture came from the same source. His gun marked London was one that Beatton sent to England for, for a young man that lived with him. I read on John Beatton’s tombstone near the powder-house that he died in 1776, aged seventy-four.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 30, 1857

Talked with Minott, who was sitting, as usual, in his wood-shed. . . . See July 3, 1857 ("Minott was sitting in his shed as usual, while his handsome pullets were perched on the wood within two feet of him, the rain having driven them to this shelter.”); February 20, 1857 ("Minott always sits in the corner behind the door, close to the stove, with commonly the cat by his side, often in his lap. Often he sits with his hat on")


Minott said he had seen a couple of pigeons go over at last, as he sat in his shed. See September 2, 1856 (“Minott, whose mind runs on them so much, but whose age and infirmities confine him to his wood-shed on the hillside, saw a small flock a fortnight ago. I rarely pass at any season of the year but he asks if I have seen any pigeons. ”)

All sorts of men come to Cattle-Show.

September 29. 

September 29, 2017

All sorts of men come to Cattle-Show. I see one with a blue hat. 

I hear that some have gathered fringed gentian. 

Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 29, 1857

Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves.  See September 28, 1854 ("R. W. E.’s pines are parti-colored, preparing to fall, some of them.”): October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

Some have gathered fringed gentian.See  October 18, 1857 ("The fringed gentian closes every night and opens every morning in my pitcher.”); October 19, 1852 ("At 5 p. m. I found the fringed gentian now some what stale and touched by frost, being in the meadow toward Peter's. (Gentiana crinita in September, Bigelow and Gray.) ...  They are now, at 8 a. m., opening a little in a pitcher. It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare.. . .It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories; the latest of all to begin to bloom.”) See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Fringed Gentian

No such gust since spring.

September 28. 

September 28, 2017

I planted six seeds sent from the Patent Office and labelled, I think, “Poitrine jaune grosse” (large yellow pumpkin (or squash?)). Two came up, and one bore a squash which weighs 123 1/2 lbs. the other bore four,    1 weighing  72 3/4
                 2d    “          54 
                 3d    “          37 3/4
                4th    “          21 3/4
                                  309 3/4

Who would have believed that there was 310 pounds of poitrine jaune grosse in that corner of our garden? Yet that little seed found it. Other seeds would find something else every year for successive ages, until the crop more than filled our whole garden; which suggests that the various fruits are the product of the same elements differently combined, and those elements are in continual revolution around the globe. This poitrine found here the air of France, and measurably its soil too.

Looking down from Nawshawtuct this afternoon, the white maples on the Assabet and below have a singular light glaucous look, almost hoary, as if curled and showing the under sides of the leaves, and they contrast with the fresh green pines and hemlocks.

The swamp white oaks present some of the same crisped whitish appearance. 

I see that E. Wood has sent a couple of Irishmen, with axe and bush-whack, to cut off the natural hedges of sumach, Roxbury waxwork, grapes, etc., which have sprung up by the walls on this hill farm, in order that his cows may get a little more green. And they have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord deliver us from these vandalic proprietors! The botanist and lover of nature has, perchance, discovered some rare tree which has sprung up by a farmer's wall-side to adorn and bless it, sole representative of its kind in these parts. Strangers send for a seed or a sprig from a distance, but, walking there again, he finds that the farmer has sent a raw Irishman, a hireling just arrived on these shores, who was never there before, — and, we trust, will never be let loose there again, – who knows not whether he is hacking at the upas tree or the Tree of Knowledge, with axe and stub-scythe to exterminate it, and he will know it no more forever. What is trespassing? This Hessian, the day after he was landed, was whirled twenty miles into the interior to do this deed of vandalism on our favorite hedge. I would as soon admit a living mud turtle into my herbarium. 

If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care. 

Had one of those sudden cool gusts, which filled the air with dust from the road, shook the houses, and caused the elms to labor and drop many leaves, early in afternoon. No such gust since spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1857

They have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord deliver us from these vandalic proprietors! . . . If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care. See  October 16, 1860 (" I have come up here this afternoon to see the dense white pine lot beyond the pond, . . .To my surprise and chagrin, I find that the fellow who calls himself its owner has burned it all over and sowed winter-rye here.. . .He needs to have a guardian placed over him. A forest-warden should be appointed by the town. Overseers of poor husbandmen.");

No such gust since spring. See September 28 1852 ("What have these high and roaring winds to do with the fall?")

I see the shadow of a hawk flying above and behind me.

September 27. 

I am surprised to find that, yesterday having been a sudden very warm day, the peaches have mellowed suddenly and wilted, and I find many more fallen than even after previous rains. Better if ripened more gradually. 

How out of all proportion to the value of an idea, when you come to one, — in Hindoo literature, for instance, — is the historical fact about it, — the when, where, etc., it was actually expressed, and what precisely it might signify to a sect of worshippers! Any thing that is called history of India — or of the world — is impertinent beside any real poetry or inspired thought which is dateless.

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff by land. 

Small red maples in low ground have fairly begun to burn for a week. It varies from scarlet to crimson. It looks like training-day in the meadows and swamps. They have run up their colors. A small red maple has grown, perchance, far away on some moist hill side, a mile from any road, unobserved. It has faith fully discharged the duties of a maple there, all winter and summer, neglected none of its economies, added to its stature in the virtue which belongs to a maple, by a steady growth all summer, and is nearer heaven than in the spring, never having gone gadding abroad; and now, in this month of September, when men are turned travellers, hastening to the seaside, or the mountains, or the lakes, – in this month of travelling, — this modest maple, having ripened its seeds, still with out budging an inch, travels on its reputation, runs up its scarlet flag on that hillside, to show that it has finished its summer work before all other trees, and withdraws from the contest. Thus that modest worth which no scrutiny could have detected when it was most industrious, is, by the very tint of its maturity, by its very blushes, revealed at last to the most careless and distant observer. It rejoices in its existence; its reflections are unalloyed. It is the day of thanksgiving with it. At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum. In its hue is no regret nor pining. Its leaves have been asking their parent from time to time in a whisper, “When shall we redden?” It has faith fully husbanded its sap, and builded without babbling nearer and nearer to heaven. Long since it committed its seeds to the winds and has the satisfaction of knowing perhaps that a thousand little well-behaved and promising maples of its stock are already established in business somewhere. It deserves well of Mapledom. It has afforded a shelter to the wandering bird. Its autumnal tint shows how it has spent its summer; it is the hue of its virtue.

These burning bushes stand thus along the edge of the meadows, and I distinguish them afar upon all the hillsides, here and there. Her virtues are as scarlet. 

The large common ferns (either cinnamon or interrupted) are yellowish, and also many as rich a deep brown now as ever. 

White birches have fairly begun to yellow, and blackberry vines here and there in sunny places look like a streak of blood on the grass. 

Bass, too, fairly begun to yellow. 

Solidago nemoralis nearly done. 

I sit on the hillside at Miles Swamp. A woodbine investing the leading stem of an elm in the swamp quite to its top is seen as an erect slender red column through the thin and yellowing foliage of the elm, – a very pretty effect. I see some small woodbine leaves in the shade of a delicate cherry-color, bordering on pink.

As I sit there I see the shadow of a hawk flying above and behind me. I think I see more hawks nowadays. Perhaps it is both because the young are grown and their food, the small birds, are flying in flocks and are abundant. I need only sit still a few minutes on any spot which overlooks the river meadows, before I see some black circling mote beating along, circling along the meadow's edge, now lost for a moment as it turns edgewise in a peculiar light, now reappearing further or nearer. 

Witch-hazel two thirds yellowed. 

Huckleberries are still abundant and quite plump on Conantum, though they have a somewhat dried taste. 

It is most natural, i. e. most in accordance with the natural phenomena, to suppose that North America was discovered from the northern part of the Eastern Continent, for a study of the range of plants, birds, and quadrupeds points to a connection on that side. Many birds are common to the northern parts of both continents. Even the passenger pigeon has flown across there. And some European plants have been detected on the extreme northeastern coast and islands, which do not extend inland. Men in their migrations obey in the main the same law.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 27, 1857

How out of all proportion to the value of an idea . . . is the historical fact about it. . . Any thing that is called history . . . is impertinent beside any real poetry or inspired thought which is dateless. See December 16, 1837 ("Mere accumulators of facts . . . are like those plants growing in dark forests, which 'put forth only leaves instead of blossoms.'"); November 9, 1851 ("I, too, would fain set down something beside facts."); February 18, 1852 ("I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant . . . I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all."); June 19, 1852 (“Facts collected by a poet are set down at last as winged seeds of truth”)

I see the shadow of a hawk flying above and behind me. I think I see more hawks nowadays. See September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? . . . I detect the transit of the first by his shadow on the rock, and look toward the sun for him.”); April 29, 1852 (“Discover a hawk over my head by his shadow on the ground.”)

Every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum. See September 27, 1851 ("The maples by the riverside look very green yet, have not begun to blush, nor are the leaves touched by frost. Not so on the uplands"); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."); September 27, 1858 ("Red maples now fairly glow along the shore.") See also September 1, 1852 ("Across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three birches diverge, at the point of a promontory next the water, I see two or three small maples already scarlet."); September 1, 1853 ("Some large maples along the river are beginning to redden."); September 12, 1858 ("Some small red maples by water begun to redden."); September 26, 1854 ("Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off."); September 20, 1857 ("A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there.")

The large common ferns (either cinnamon or interrupted) are yellowish, and also many as rich a deep brown now as ever. See September 6, 1854 ("The cinnamon ferns along the edge of woods next the meadow are many yellow or cinnamon, or quite brown and withered."); September 2, 1854 ("The interrupted fern begins to yellow.")

These are warm, serene, bright autumn afternoons.

September 26. 

Saturday. 

A. M. — Apparently Hypericum prolificum in Monroe's garden, still out. 

The season is waning. A wasp just looked in upon me. A very warm day for the season. 

P. M. – Up river to Clamshell. 

September 26, 2014

These are warm, serene, bright autumn afternoons. I see far off the various-colored gowns of cranberry pickers against the green of the meadow. The river stands a little way over the grass again, and the summer is over. 

The pickerel-weed is brown, and I see musquash-houses. 

Solidago rigida, just done, within a rod southwest of the oak.

I see a large black cricket on the river, a rod from shore, and a fish is leaping at it. As long as the fish leaps, it is motionless as if dead; but as soon as it feels my paddle under it, it is lively enough. 

I sit on Clamshell bank and look over the meadows. Hundreds of crickets have fallen into a sandy gully and now are incessantly striving to creep or leap up again over the sliding sand. This their business this September afternoon.

I watch a marsh hawk circling low along the edge of the meadow, looking for a frog, and now at last it alights to rest on a tussock.

Coming home, the sun is intolerably warm on my left cheek. I perceive it is because the heat of the reflected sun, which is as bright as the real one, is added to that of the real one, for when I cover the reflection with my hand the heat is less intense.

That cricket seemed to know that if he lay quietly spread out on the surface, either the fishes would not suspect him to be an insect, or if they tried to swallow him would not be able to. 

What blundering fellows these crickets are, both large and small! They were not only tumbling into the river all along shore, but into this sandy gully, to escape from which is a Sisyphus labor. 

I have not sat there many minutes watching two foraging crickets which have decided to climb up two tall and slender weeds almost bare of branches, as a man shins up a liberty-pole sometimes, when I find that one has climbed to the summit of my knee. 

They are incessantly running about on the sunny bank. Their still larger cousins, the mole crickets, are creaking loudly and incessantly all along the shore. Others have eaten themselves cavernous apartments, sitting-room and pantry at once, in windfall apples.

Speaking to Rice of that cricket's escape, he said that a snake [sic] in like manner would puff itself up when a snake was about to swallow him, making right up to him. He once, with several others, saw a small striped snake swim across a piece of water about half a rod wide to a half-grown bullfrog which sat on the opposite shore, and attempt to seize him, but he found that he had caught a Tartar, for the bullfrog, seeing him coming, was not afraid of him, but at once seized his head in his mouth and closed his jaws upon it, and he thus held the snake a considerable while before the latter was able by struggling to get away. 

When that cricket felt my oar, he leaped without the least hesitation or perhaps consideration, trusting to fall in a pleasanter place. He was evidently trusting to drift against some weed which would afford him a point d'appui.

H. D. Thoreau , Journal , September 26, 1857


Coming home, the sun is intolerably warm on my left cheek. . . . when I cover the reflection with my hand the heat is less intense. Compare July 21, 1853 ("The sun is now warm on my back, and when I turn round I have to shade my face with my hands . . .")

The tree has its idea to be lived up to,

September 25. 

September 25, 2017

Friday. P. M. – To tupelo on Daniel B. Clark’s land.

Stopping in my boat under the Hemlocks, I hear singular bird-like chirruping from two red squirrels. One sits high on a hemlock bough with a nut in its paws. A squirrel seems always to have a nut at hand ready to twirl in its paws. Suddenly he dodges behind the trunk of the tree, and I hear some birds in the maples across the river utter a peculiar note of alarm of the same character with the hen’s (I think they were robins), and see them seeking a covert. Looking round, I see a marsh hawk beating the bushes on that side. 

You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank. 

Pushing by Carter’s pasture, I see, deep under water covered by the rise of the river, the cooper’s poles a-soak, held down by planks and stones. 

Fasten to the white maple and go inland. Wherever you may land, it would be strange if there were not some alder clump at hand to hide your oars in till your return. 

The red maple has fairly begun to blush in some places by the river. I see one, by the canal behind Barrett’s mill, all aglow against the sun. These first trees that change are most interesting, since they are seen against others still freshly green, — such brilliant red on green. I go half a mile out of my way to examine such a red banner. A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar. 

At the eleventh hour of the year, some tree which has stood mute and inglorious in some distant vale thus proclaims its character as effectually as it stood by the highway-side, and it leads our thoughts away from the dusty road into those brave solitudes which it inhabits. The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence. I am thrilled at the sight of it, bearing aloft its scarlet standard for its regiment of green-clad foresters around. The forest is the more spirited.

I remember that brakes had begun to decay as much as six weeks ago. 

Dogwood (Rhus venenata) is yet but pale-scarlet or yellowish. The R. glabra is more generally turned. 

Stopped at Barrett's mill. He had a buttonwood log to saw. 

In an old grist-mill the festoons of cobwebs revealed by the white dust on them are an ornament. Looking over the shoulder of the miller, I drew his attention to a mouse running up a brace. 

“Oh, yes,” said he, “we have plenty of them. Many are brought to the mill in barrels of corn, and when the barrel is placed on the platform of the hopper they scamper away.” 

As I came round the island, I took notice of that little ash tree on the opposite shore. It has been cut or broken off about two feet from the ground, and seven small branches have shot up from its circumference, all together forming a perfectly regular oval head about twenty-five feet high and very beautiful. With what harmony they work and carry out the idea of the tree, one twig not straying farther on this side than its fellow on that! 

That the tree thus has its idea to be lived up to, and, as it were, fills an invisible mould in the air, is the more evident, because if you should cut away one or all but one, the remaining branch or branches would still in time form a head in the main similar to this. 

Brought home my first boat-load of wood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1857

You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank. See September 6, 1857 ("Soapwort gentian, out not long"); September 8, 1852 ("Gentiana saponaria out."); September 19, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises, -- solid bulbs of blue from the shade, the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river, after so much has been mown"); September 22, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Soapwort Gentian

A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar. See September 26, 1854 ("Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off. "); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water.")

Brought home my first boat-load of wood. See September 26, 1855 (Go up Assabet for fuel"); September 24, 1855 ("Brought home quite a boat-load of fuel . . . It would be a triumph to get all my winter’s wood thus")

With what harmony they work and carry out the idea of the tree,. . . has its idea to be lived up to, and, as it were, fills an invisible mould in the air. Compare February 12, 1859 ("You may account for that ash by the Rock having such a balanced and regular outline by the fact that in an open place their branches are equally drawn toward the light on all sides, and not because of a mutual understanding through the trunk.")

This is the way forests are planted.

September 24. 

Thursday. A. M. — Up the Assabet. 

The river is considerably raised and also muddied by the recent rains. 

I saw a red squirrel run along the bank under the hemlocks with a nut in its mouth. He stopped near the foot of a hemlock, and, hastily pawing a hole with his fore feet, dropped the nut, covered it up, and re treated part way up the trunk of the tree, all in a few moments. 

I approached the shore to examine the deposit, and he, descending betrayed no little anxiety for his treasure and made two or three motions to recover the nut before he retreated. Digging there, I found two pignuts joined together, with their green shells on, buried about an inch and a half in the soil, under the red hemlock leaves. 

This, then, is the way forests are planted. This nut must have been brought twenty rods at least and was buried at just the right depth. If the squirrel is killed, or neglects its deposit, a hickory springs up.


P. M. — I walk to that very dense and handsome white pine grove east of Beck Stow’s Swamp. It is about fifteen rods square, the trees large, ten to twenty inches in diameter. It is separated by a wall from another pine wood with a few oaks in it on the south east, and about thirty rods north and west are other pine and oak woods. 

Standing on the edge of the wood and looking through it,—for it is quite level and free from underwood, mostly bare, red-carpeted ground, you would have said that there was not a hardwood tree in it, young or old, though I afterward found on one edge a middling-sized sassafras, a birch, a small tupelo, and two little scarlet oaks, but, what was more interesting, I found, on looking closely over its floor, that, alternating with thin ferns and small blueberry bushes, there was, as often as every five feet, a little oak, three to twelve inches high, and in one place I found a green acorn dropped by the base of a tree. 

I was surprised, I confess, to find my own theory so perfectly proved. These oaks, apparently, find such a locality unfavorable to their growth as long as the pines stand. I saw that some had been browsed by the cows which resort to the wood for shade. As an evidence that hardwood trees would not flourish under those circumstances, I found a red maple twenty five feet high recently prostrated, as if by the wind, but still covered with green leaves, the only maple in the wood, and also two birches decaying in the same position.

The ground was completely strewn with white pine cones, apparently thrown down by the squirrels, still generally green and closed, but many stripped of scales, about the base of almost every pine, sometimes all of them. Now and for a week a good time to collect them. You can hardly enter such a wood but you will hear a red squirrel chiding you from his concealment in some pine-top. It is the sound most native to the locality.

Minott tells of their finding near a bushel of chestnuts in a rock, when blasting for the mill brook, at that ditch near Flint's Pond. He said it was a gray squirrel's depot. 

I find the Lycopodium dendroideum, not quite out, just northwest of this pine grove, in the grass. It is not the variety obscurum, which grows at Trillium Wood, is more upright-branched and branches round.

H.. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 24, 1857

I was surprised, I confess, to find my own theory so perfectly proved. See June 3, 1856 (“As I have said before, it seems to me that the squirrels, etc., disperse the acorns, etc., amid the pines,  . . .  If the pine wood had been surrounded by white oak, probably that would have come up after the pine.”) and The succession of forest trees (“If a pine wood is surrounded by a white-oak one chiefly, white-oaks may be expected to succeed when the pines are cut.”)

Now and for a week a good time to collect them. See September 16, 1857 ("On the trees many are already open. Say within a week have begun.”); October  16, 1855 “(P. M. —To the white pine grove beyond Beck Stow’s. What has got all the cones?”) and note to September 9, 1857 (“To the Hill for white pine cones.”)

By Flint’s Pond road in the woods.

September 23. 

September 23, 2017
Solidago, aster & vanessa

Wednesday. P. M. – To chestnut oaks. 

Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint's Pond road in the woods. I observe in these places only the N. alba and Fraseri; but these are not well distinguished; they seem to be often alike in the color of the pappus. Some are very tall and slender, and the largest I saw was an N. Fraseri! One N. alba had a panicle three feet long! 

The Ripley beeches have been cut. I can’t find them. There is one large one, apparently on Baker's land, about two feet in diameter near the ground, but fruit hollow. 

I see yellow pine-sap, in the woods just east of where the beeches used to stand, just done, but the red variety is very common and quite fresh generally there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1857

Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint's Pond road in the woods. See September 13, 1857 (“Nabalus Fraseri, top of Cliffs, — a new plant, . . ."The nabalus family generally, apparently now in prime.”);September 15, 1851 ("Prenanthes alba; this Gray calls Nabalus albus, white lettuce or rattlesnake-root. Also I seem (?) to have found Nabalus Fraseri, or lion's-foot.”);September 17, 1857 (“I go to Fair Haven Hill, looking at the varieties of nabalus, which have a singular prominence now in all woods and roadsides.”)

I see yellow pine-sap . . . just done, but the red variety is very common . See  September 23, 1860 (“Red pine-sap by north side of Yew Path some ten rods east of yew, not long done. The root of the freshest has a decided checkerberry scent, and for a long time — a week after — in my chamber, the bruised plant has a very pleasant earthy sweetness. ”). See also 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 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. Remarkable this doubleness in nature, — not only that nature should be composed of just these individuals, but that there should be so rarely or never an individual without its kindred, — its cousin. It is allied to something else. There is not only the tobacco-pipe, but pine-sap.”); August 14, 1856 (“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.”); August 23, 1858 (“See an abundance of pine-sap on the right of Pine-sap Path.”); October 6, 1857 (“I see a great quantity of hypopitys, now all sere, along the path in the woods beyond. Call it Pine-Sap Path. It seems to have been a favorable season for it”); October 14, 1858 ("On the top of Ball’s Hill, nearly half-way its length, the red pine-sap, quite fresh, apparently not long in bloom, the flower recurved. As last year, I suspect that this variety is later than the yellowish one, of which I have seen none for a long time."); November 25, 1857 ("Methinks there has been more pine-sap than usual the past summer. I never saw a quarter part so much. It stands there withered in dense brown masses, six or eight inches high, partly covered with dead leaves.") and note to September 9, 1857 (“C. brings me a small red hypopitys. It has a faint sweet, earthy, perhaps checkerberry, scent”)

September 23, 2017

It has been a very warm week warmer in fact then the summer. We walk to the view and sit a long time longer than we planned  this extra time allows us to watch a flight of starlings cross the clearing and do a repeat performance then, unexpectedly a pileated bursts out of the woods and crosses the clearing this is the highlight of the walk. We go up the ravine past the Fisher “pond“ and around to the double chair New red pine needles are lightly strewn on the forest floor   we find a small bunch of white pine cones that has been nipped by a squirrel from the top of the tree. The cones are open, brown and very sticky.   We bushwhack  down the mountain.  By accident I come to the porcupine tree without knowing I was there or taking precautions with the dogs but all is well . At the lower view we snap a picture of the sun now setting  south of white face. I am hot and sweaty he when we get home. i think, “barred owls are the chickadees of the night”

This warm autumn day

unplanned a pileated

flys through the clearing.

zphx 20170923

The lover alone perceives and dwells in a certain human fragrance

September 22. 

Sophia has in her herbarium and has found in Concord these which I have not seen this summer :  

• Pogonia verticillata, Hubbard's Second Wood. Bigelow says July. 

• Trillium erythrocarpum, Bigelow says May and June. 

• Uvularia perfoliata, Bigelow says May.

September 22, 2017

P. M. — On river. 

The Polygonum amphibium var. terrestre is a late flower, and now more common and the spikes larger, quite handsome and conspicuous, and more like a prince's-feather than any. 

Large woolly aphides are now clustered close together on the alder stems. 

Some of those I see are probably the sharp-shinned hawk. 

When was it I heard the upland plover? 

Has been a great flight of blue-winged teal this season. 

The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now. 

In love we impart, each to each, in subtlest immaterial form of thought or atmosphere, the best of ourselves, such as commonly vanishes or evaporates in aspirations, and mutually enrich each other. The lover alone perceives and dwells in a certain human fragrance. To him humanity is not only a flower, but an aroma and a flavor also.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 22, 1852

Sophia has in her herbarium and has found in Concord these which I have not seen this summer ...Uvularia perfoliata. See note to August 22, 1857 ("[Edward Hoar] says he found the Uvularia perfoliata on the Stow road, he thinks within Concord bounds.")

Probably the sharp-shinned hawk.  See   March 28, 1854 (“See a small slate-colored hawk, with wings transversely mottled beneath, — probably the sharp-shinned hawk.”); April 3, 1859 ("Near to the pond I see a small hawk, larger than a pigeon hawk, fly past, — a deep brown with a light spot on the side. I think it probable it was a sharp- shinned hawk."); April 7, 1853 ("  A hawk above Ball’s Hill which, though with a distinct white rump, I think was not the harrier but sharp-shinned, from its broadish, mothlike form, light and slightly spotted beneath, with head bent downward, watching for prey"); April 16, 1855 ( "What I call a pigeon hawk, probably sharp-shinned.”); May 4, 1855 (“Sitting in Abel Brooks’s Hollow, see a small hawk go over high in the air, with a long tail and distinct from wings. It advanced by a sort of limping flight yet rapidly, not circling nor tacking, but flapping briskly at intervals and then gliding straight ahead with rapidity, controlling itself with its tail. It seemed to be going a journey. Was it not the sharp-shinned, or Falco fuscus?  I think that what I have called the sparrow hawk falsely, and latterly pigeon hawk, is also the sharp-shinned.") A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sharp-shinned Hawk

When was it I heard the upland plover? See  September 19, 1854 ("An upland plover goes off from Conantum top (though with a white belly), uttering a sharp white, tu white. "); July 12, 1855 ("The upland plover begins with a quivering note somewhat like a tree-toad and ends with a long, clear, somewhat plaintive or melodious hawk-like scream.. . ."); June 16, 1857 ("From time to time, summer and winter and far inland, I call to mind that peculiar prolonged cry of the upland plover on the bare heaths of Truro in July, heard from sea to sea . . .")

Has been a great flight of blue-winged teal this season.   See September 20, 1856 ("Melvin says that there are many teal about the river now.")

The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now. See  September 6, 1857 ("Soapwort gentian, out not long"); September 8, 1852 ("Gentiana saponaria out."); September 19, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises, -- solid bulbs of blue from the shade, the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river, after so much has been mown"); September 22, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now."); September 25, 1857 ("You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Soapwort Gentian

The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days.

September 21. 

Monday. P. M. – To Corallorhiza Rock. and Tobacco-pipe Wood, northeast of Spruce Swamp. 

Peaches are now in their prime. 

Came through that thick white pine wood on the east of the spruce swamp. This is a very dense white pine grove, consisting of tall and slender trees which have been thinned, yet they are on an average only from three to six feet asunder. Perhaps half have been cut. It is a characteristic white pine grove, and I have seen many such. The trees are some ten inches in diameter, larger or smaller, and about fifty feet high. They are bare for thirty-five or forty feet up, — which is equal to at least twenty-five years of their growth, or with only a few dead twigs high up. Their green crowded tops are mere oval spear-heads in shape and almost in proportionate size, four to eight feet wide, – not enough, you would think, to keep the tree alive, still less to draw it upward. In a dark day the wood is not only thick but dark with the boles of the trees. 

Under this dense shade, the red-carpeted ground is almost bare of vegetation and is dark at noon. There grow Goodyera pubescens and repens, Corallorhiza multiflora (going to seed), white cohosh berries, Pyrola secunda, and, on the low west side and also the east side, an abundance of tobacco-pipe, which has begun to turn black at the tip of the petals and leaves. 

The Solidago casia is very common and fresh in copses, perhaps the prevailing solidago now in woods. 

Rudbeckia laciniata done, probably some time. 

The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days. 

Measured the large white willow north the road near Hildreth's. At a foot and a half from the ground it is fourteen feet in circumference; at five feet, the smallest place, it is twelve feet in circumference. It was once still larger, for it has lost large branches.[Cut down in '59.]

H. D. Thoereau, Journal, September 21, 1857


Corallorhiza Rock. See August 29, 1857 ("Nearby, north [of Indian Rock, west of the swamp], is a rocky ridge, on the east slope of which the Corallorhiza multiflora is very abundant.")

Corallorhiza multiflora [spotted coral root] (going to seed)... See note to August 13, 1857

Under this dense shade, the red-carpeted ground is almost bare of vegetation and is dark at noon. There grow Goodyera pubescens and repens See August 20, 1857 ("The Goodyera repens grows behind the spring where I used to sit, amid the dead pine leaves") and note to August 27, 1856 (“Goodyera pubescens, rattlesnake-plantain, is apparently a little past its prime. It is very abundant on Clintonia Swamp hillside. . .”)

An abundance of tobacco-pipe, which has begun to turn black . . . See July 24, 1856 ("Tobacco-pipe much blackened, out a long time.")

The Solidago casia is very common and fresh in copses, perhaps the prevailing solidago now in woods. See October 8, 1856 ("S. casia, much the worse for the wear, but freshest of any [goldenrod] seen.")

The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days. See  September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day, warm but not too warm, a harvest day . . ."If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.”); August 29, 1854 ("I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool, and Nature seems really more genial. ")

Our first fall rain makes a dividing line between the summer and fall.

September 20. 

Sunday. Another mizzling day. 

P. M. — To beach plums behind A. Clarke’s. 

We walked in some trodden path on account of the wet grass and leaves, but the fine grass overhanging paths, weighed down with dewy rain, wet our feet nevertheless. We cannot afford to omit seeing the beaded grass and wetting our feet. 

This is our first fall rain, and makes a dividing line between the summer and fall. 

Yet there has been no drought the past summer. Vegetation is unusually fresh. Methinks the grass in some shorn meadows is even greener than in the spring. You are soon wet through by the underwood if you enter the woods, — ferns, aralia, huckleberries, etc. 

Went through the lower side of the wood west of Peter’s. 

The early decaying and variegated spotted leaves of the Aralia nudicaulis, which spread out flat and of uniform height some eighteen (?) inches above the forest floor, are very noticeable and interesting in our woods in early autumn, now and for some time. For more than a month it has been changing. 

The outlines of trees are more conspicuous and interesting such a day as this, being seen distinctly against the near misty background, – distinct and dark. 

The branches of the alternate cornel are spreading and flat, somewhat cyme-like, as its fruit. 

Beach plums are now perfectly ripe and unexpectedly good, as good as an average cultivated plum. I get a handful, dark purple with a bloom, as big as a good-sized grape and but little more oblong, about three quarters of an inch broad and a very little longer. 

I got a handkerchief full of elder-berries, though I am rather late about it, for the birds appear to have greatly thinned the cymes. 

A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there. 

A pitch pine and birch wood is rapidly springing up between the Beck Stow Wood and the soft white pine grove. It is now just high and thick enough to be noticed as a young wood-lot, if not mowed down.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 20, 1857

First fall rain. See September 20, 1853 (It rained very hard while we were aboard the steamer."); September 20, 1854 ("Windy rain-storm last night");   September 20, 1856 ("Rain in afternoon. Rain again in the night, hard."); September 20, 1860 ("Rainy in forenoon."); September 25, 1860 ("Hard, gusty rain (with thunder and lightning) in afternoon.")

The outlines of trees are more conspicuous and interesting such a day as this, being seen distinctly against the near misty background, – distinct and dark. See December 16, 1855 ("The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable, like pictures, and makes the houses more interesting, revealing but one at a time."); August 4, 1854 ("Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects"); February 6, 1852 (A mistiness makes the woods look denser, darker and more primitive.); November 29, 1850 ("The trees and shrubs look larger than usual when seen through the mist...As you advance, the trees gradually come out of the mist and take form before your eyes.")  See also November 7, 1855 ("I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon . . .The world and my life are simplified. ")

September 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. September 20

Our first fall rain makes 

a dividing line between 

the summer and fall. 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Our first fall rain

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-570920

Still somewhat rainy. Solidago arguta ( solidago stricta and solidago juncea).

September 19. 

Saturday. 

Still somewhat rainy,—since last evening. 

Solidago arguta variety done, say a week or more.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1857

Solidago arguta variety done. . . See August 21, 1856 ("the prevailing solidagos now are,. . .the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last)"); September 6, 1856 ("Solidago arguta very common, apparently in prime"): September 15, 1856 ("Early Solidago stricta (that is, arguta) done "); .September 11, 1857 ("My old S. stricta (early form) must be S. Arguta var. juncea.");

Solidago arguta in old usage, or (misapplied) solidago stricta, is solidago juncea  (early goldenrod) ~Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts

September 19, 2017