I hear the sound of distant thunder. The perception of beauty. The succession of wildflowers; the history of a hillside.

June 21. 

June 21, 2020

Monday. 7 p.m. — To Cliffs via Hubbard Bathing-Place.

Cherry-birds. I have not seen, though I think I have heard them before, — their fine seringo note, like a vibrating spring in the air. They are a handsome bird, with their crest and chestnut breasts. There is no keeping the run of their goings and comings, but they will be ready for the cherries when they shall be ripe. 

The adder's-tongue arethusa smells exactly like a snake. How singular that in nature, too, beauty and offensiveness should be thus combined! 

In flowers, as well as men, we demand a beauty pure and fragrant, which perfumes the air. The flower which is showy but has no, or an offensive, odor expresses the character of too many mortals. 

The swamp-pink bushes have many whitish spongy excrescences. 

Elder is blossoming; flowers opening now where black berries will be by and by. 

Panicled andromeda, or privet andromeda. 

Nature has looked uncommonly bare and dry to me for a day or two. With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical and corresponding moral revolutions. Nature was so shallow all at once I did not know what had attracted me all my life. I was therefore encouraged when, going through a field this evening, I was unexpectedly struck with the beauty of an apple tree. The perception of beauty is a moral test. 

When, in bathing, I rush hastily into the river the clamshells cut my feet. It is dusky now. Men are fishing on the Corner Bridge. 

I hear the veery and the huckleberry-bird and the catbird. 

It is a cool evening, past 8 o'clock.

I see the tephrosia out through the dusk; a handsome flower. 

What rich crops this dry hillside has yielded! First I saw the Viola pedata here, and then the lupines and the snapdragon covered it; and now the lupines are done and their pods are left, the tephrosia has taken their place. 

This small dry hillside is thus a natural garden. I omit other flowers which grow here, and name only those which to some extent cover it or possess it. No eighth of an acre in a cultivated garden would be better clothed, or with a more pleasing variety, from month to month, and while one flower is in bloom you little suspect that which is to succeed and perchance eclipse it. It is a warmly placed dry hillside beneath a wall, very thinly clad with grass. Such spots there are in nature, natural flower gardens. Of this succession I hardly know which to admire the most. 

It would be pleasant to write the history of one hillside for one year. First and last you have the colors of the rainbow and more, and the various fragrances, which it has not. Blackberries, roses, and dogsbane also are now in bloom here.

I hear neither toads nor bullfrogs at present; they want a warmer night. 

I hear the sound of distant thunder, though no cloud is obvious, muttering like the roar of artillery. That is a phenomenon of this season. As you walk at evening, you see the light of the flashes in the horizon and hear the muttering of distant thunder, where some village is being refreshed with the rain denied to Concord. We say that showers avoid us, that they go down the river, i. e. go off down the Merrimack, or keep to the south. 

Thunder and lightning are remarkable accompaniments to our life, as if to remind us that there always is or should be a kind of battle waging. The thunder is signal guns to us. 

The dwarf orchis (O. herbiola (Bigelow), Platanthera flava (Gray)) at the bathing-place in Hubbard's meadow, not remarkable. 

The purple orchis is a good flower to bring home. It will keep fresh many days, and its buds open at last in a pitcher of water. 

Obtuse galium. 

I observe a rose (called by some moss rose), with a bristly reddish stem; another, with a smooth red stem and but a few prickles; another, with many prickles and bristles. 

Found the single-flowered broom-rape in Love Lane, under the oak.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 21, 1852


The swamp-pink bushes have many whitish spongy excrescences. See June 20, 1853 ("Those great greenish-white puffs on the panicled andromeda are now decaying.On the swamp-pink they are solid.")

The adder's-tongue arethusa smells exactly like a snake. Compare July 26, 1856 ("The pod of the ellipticum, when cut, smells like a bee.") See July 7, 1852 ("The Arethusa bulbosa, "crystalline purple;" Pogonia ophioglossoides, snake-mouthed arethusa, "pale purple;" and the Calopogon pulchellus, grass pink, "pink purple," make one family in my mind, — next to the purple orchis, or with it, — being flowers par excellence, all flower, all color, with inconspicuous leaves, naked flowers, . . .the pogonia has a strong snaky odor."); see also July 2, 857 ("Pogonia ophioglossoides apparently in a day or two. "); to July 7, 1856 ("the snake-head arethusa is now abundant amid the cranberries. there [Gowings Swamp]");July 8, 1857 ("Find a Pogonia ophioglossoides with a third leaf and second flower an inch above the first flower."); August 1, 1856 ("Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow. “)..Coompare Arethusa bulbosa, May 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to find arethusas abundantly out in Hubbard's Close, maybe two or three days ... This high-colored plant shoots up suddenly, all flower, in meadows where it is wet walking. A superb flower.”); June 10, 1854 (“The fragrance of the arethusa is like that of the lady's-slipper, or pleasanter.”).  See also  June 19, 1852 ("These are peculiar days when you find the purple orchis and the arethusa, too, in the meadows."); June 30, 1852 ("Is not this period more than any distinguished for flowers, when roses, swamp-pinks, morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias, orchises, blue flags, epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are all in blossom at once?")

With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical and corresponding moral revolutions.See  June 25, 1852 ("There is a flower for every mood of the mind."); May 23, 1853 ("The poet must bring to Nature the smooth mirror in which she is to be reflected. Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind.”) August 7, 1853 ("Is it not as language that all natural objects affect the poet? He sees a flower or other object, and it is beautiful or affecting to him because it is a symbol of his thought. . .The objects I behold correspond to my mood.”);  June 6, 1857 (“Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind.”); August 30, 1851 ("The fall of each humblest flower marks the annual period of some phase of human life experience. I can be said to note the flower's fall only when I see in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the flower appears to me.)


Nature was so shallow all at once I did not know what had attracted me all my life. See November 18, 1857 ("I lost for the time my rapport or relation to nature. ")

I was unexpectedly struck with the beauty of an apple tree. The perception of beauty is a moral test. See  December 11. 1855 ("Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear "); January 17, 1852 (“As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there; some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable.”); May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world, it was so soothing. I saw that I could not go home to supper and lose it. It was so much fairer, serener, more beautiful, than my mood had been."); July 26, 1852 ("The mind that perceives clearly any natural beauty is in that instant withdrawn from human society."); December 11. 1855 ("It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance."); November 18, 1857 ("You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind."); October 4, 1859 ("You have got to be in a different state from common.") Autumnal Tints ("There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate")

Panicled andromeda, or privet andromeda. See June 21, 1854 ("(panicled andromeda, which loves dry places, now in blossom")

I see the tephrosia out through the dusk; a handsome flower. See July 10, 1857 ("The tephrosia, which grows by Peter's road in the woods, is a very striking and interesting, if I may not say beautiful, flower, especially when, as here, it is seen in a cool and shady place, its clear rose purple contrasting very agreeably with yellowish white, rising from amidst a bed of finely pinnate leaves.")

A natural garden. Blackberries, roses, and dogsbane also are now in bloom here. See June 30, 1852 (" Is not this period more than any distinguished for flowers, when roses, swamp-pinks, morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias, orchises, blue flags, epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are all in blossom at once?")

We say that showers avoid us, that they go down the river, i. e. go off down the Merrimack, See May 16, 1853 ("At 5 P. M., dark, heavy, wet-looking clouds are seen in the northern horizon, perhaps over the Merrimack Valley, and we say it is going down the river and we shall not get a drop."); June 15, 1860 (“A thunder-shower in the north goes down the Merrimack.”)  See also June 16, 1860 ("Thunder-showers show themselves about 2 P.M. in the west, but split at sight of Concord and go east on each side.”); June 16, 1854 ("Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us.”); June 17, 1852 ("A small thunder-shower comes up . . . We see the increasing outline of the slate-colored falling rain from the black cloud. It passes mainly to the south. Also see note to June 9, 1860 ("We have half a dozen showers to-day, distinct summer showers from black clouds suddenly wafted up from the west and northeast; also some thunder and hail, - large white stones.")

The dwarf orchis Platanthera flava (Gray) at the bathing-place in Hubbard's meadow, not remarkable.  See June 18, 1854 ("Platanthera flava at the Harrington Bathing - Place, possibly yesterday , — an unimportant yellowish - green spike of flowers.")

The purple orchis is a good flower to bring home. It will keep fresh many days, and its buds open at last in a pitcher of water. See June 19, 1852 ("The orchis keeps well. One put in my hat this morning, and carried all day, will last fresh a day or two at home"); June 16, 1854 (" It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. It may be plucked when the spike is only half opened, and will open completely and keep perfectly fresh in a pitcher more than a wee") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Fringed Orchids

I observe a rose (called by some moss rose), with a bristly reddish stem.See June 21, 1854 ("Again I am attracted by the deep scarlet of the wild moss rose half open in the grass , all glowing with rosy light."); See also June 12, 1853 ("A wild moss rose in Arethusa Meadow, where are arethusas lingering still.")