Buds and twigs and the mazes made by twigs, and the silvery November light .

November 15. 

P. M. — To Grackle Swamp. 

A very fine snow falling, just enough to whiten the bare spots a little. I go to look for evergreen ferns before they are covered up.The end of last month and the first part of this is the time. I do not know that I find more than one kind now in that swamp, and of that the fertile fronds are mostly decayed. All lie flat, ready to be buried in snow. 

Slight as the snow is, you are now reminded occasionally in your walks that you have contemporaries, and perchance predecessors. I see the track of a fox which was returning from his visit to a farmyard last night, and, in the wood-path, of a man and a dog. The dog must have been a large one. I see their shadows before me. 

In another place, where the snow is so slight and lifted up on the withered grass that no track is left, I see by the cakes or balls of snow that have dropped from his shoes that a man has passed. This would be known for a man and a dog’s track in any part of the world. 

Five toes in a bundle, somewhat diamond-shape, forming a sort of rosette, are the print of the dog, whether on the sands of Africa or the snow of New England. The track of his master is somewhat more variable, yet reducible within certain limits. 

The Lycopodium dendroideum var. obscurum appears to be just in bloom in the swamp about the Hemlocks (the regular one (not variety) is apparently earlier), — later than the Lycopodium complanatum, which is done there. 

Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November; also the frost-weed and evergreen ferns. 

Buds and twigs (like gossamer), and the mazes made by twigs, and the silvery light on this down and the silver-haired andropogon grass to the first half of November. 

The water andromeda leaves have fallen, and the persistent turned that red brown; how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 15, 1858

The Lycopodium dendroideum var. obscurum appears to be just in bloom in the swamp about the Hemlocks (the regular one (not variety) is apparently earlier).  See September 24, 1857 ("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."); Novemberr 7, 1858 ("I see Lycopodium dendroideum which has not yet shed pollen.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums


Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November. See November 15, 1859 (“A fine gossamer is streaming from every fence and tree and stubble, though a careless observer would not notice it.”);  See also note to November 3, 1857 ("It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear."); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days


The water andromeda leaves have fallen, and the persistent turned that red brown. See November 14, 1858 ("The different colors of the water andromeda in different lights."); November 20, 1857 ("The water andromeda leaves are brown now, except where protected by trees."); November 23, 1857 ("The water andromeda [at Gowing's Swamp] makes a still more uniformly dense thicket, which. . .makes an impression of smoothness and denseness, – its rich brown, wholesome surface, even as grass or moss.")