The evergreen ferns stand out all at once.

October 23

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Aspidium spinulosum

The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum, which I had not identified. Apparently Aspidium cristatum elsewhere.

I can find no bright leaves now in the woods. 

Witch hazel, etc., are withered, turned brown, or yet green. 

See by the droppings in the woods where small migrating birds have roosted. 

I see a squirrel's nest in a white pine, recently made, on the hillside near the witch-hazels. 

The high bank-side is mostly covered with fallen leaves of pines and hemlocks, etc. 

Marginal Woodfern

Mt. Pritchard, October 23, 2024

The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears. 

The fallen pine-needles, as well as other leaves, now actually paint the surface of the earth brown in the woods, covering the green and other colors, and the few evergreen plants on the forest floor stand out distinct and have a rare preeminence. 

Sal Cummings, a thorough countrywoman, conversant with nuts and berries, calls the soapwort gentian “blue vengeance,” mistaking the word. A masculine wild eyed woman of the fields. Somebody has her daguerreotype. When Mr. — was to lecture on Kansas, she was sure “she wa'n't going to hear him. None of her folks had ever had any.”

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

Aspidium spinulosum, which I had not identified. See October 31, 1857 ("In the Lee farm swamp, by the old Sam Barrett mill site, I see two kinds of ferns still green and much in fruit, apparently the Aspidium spinulosum (?) and cristatum (?). They are also common in other swamps now. They are quite fresh in those cold and wet places and almost flattened down now . . . In the summer you might not have noticed them. Now they are conspicuous amid the withered leaves."); November 17, 1858 ("Aspidium spinulosum (?), large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister's Spring, on 16th"); September 25, 1859 ("The terminal shield fern and the Aspidium spinulosum (?) are still fresh and green, the first as much so as the polypody."); September 30, 1859 ("The most decidedly evergreen are the [terminal shield fern ], polypody, Aspidium marginale, and Aspidium spinulosum of Woodis Swamp and Brister's."); May 18, 1860 ("That large fern (is it Aspidium spinulosum? ) of Brister Spring Swamp is a foot or more high. It is partly evergreen.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum

The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum, which I had not identified. Apparently Aspidium cristatum elsewhere. See September 30, 1859 ("Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens."); November 17, 1858 ("As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —

• Common polypody  [Polypodium virginianum — rock polypody] (though shrivelled by cold where exposed)
• Asplenium trichomanes [maidenhair spleenwort].
• A. ebeneum [or Asplenium platyneuron – ebony spleenwort or brownstem spleenwort].
• Aspidium spinulosum (?) [or Dryopteris carthusiana or Polypodium spinulosum, –  spinulose shield fern, spinulose woodfern or toothed wood fern] large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th.
• A. cristatum (?) [or Dryopteris cristata – crested wood fern], Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond.
• A. marginale (common) [or Dryopteris marginalis, – marginal shield fern or marginal wood fern]
• A. achrostichoides (terminal shield) [or Polystichum acrostichoides, – Christmas fern].")

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum  & Aspidium cristatum;  

I begin now to

notice the evergreen ferns –

when others wither.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern

Sal Cummings, a thorough countrywoman, conversant with nuts and berries' See October 5, 1856 ("Sally Cummings and Mike Murray are out on the Hill collecting apples and nuts. Do they not rather belong to such children of nature than to those who have merely bought them with their money?")

October 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 23

The evergreen ferns 

are seen to be evergreen – 

stand out all at once. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  evergreen ferns stand out all at once.

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-571023