The summer is begun sweet and spicy to the smell.

June 5.

To-night, June 5th, after a hot day, I hear the first peculiar summer breathing of the frogs.

Yesterday, when I walked to Goodman's Hill, it seemed to me that the atmosphere was never so full of fragrance and spicy odors. There is a great variety in the fragrance of the apple blossoms as well as their tints. Some are quite spicy. The air seemed filled with the odor of ripe strawberries, though it is quite too early for them. The earth was not only fragrant but sweet and spicy to the smell, reminding us of Arabian gales and what mariners tell of the spice islands. 

Silene caroliniana, (wild pink)

The first of June, when the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 5, 1850

Yesterday, when I walked to Goodman's Hill. See June 3, 1850 ("I visited this afternoon (June 3d) Goodman's Hill in Sudbury, going through Lincoln over Sherman's Bridge and Round Hill, and returning through the Corner. It probably affords the best view of Concord River meadows of any hill")

 The earth was not only fragrant but sweet and spicy to the smell. See June 5, 1853 ("The world now full of verdure and fragrance and the air comparatively clear . . . through which the distant fields are seen, reddened with sorrel, and the meadows wet green.")

When the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons. See  June 5, 1856 ("Everywhere now in dry pitch pine woods stand the red lady’s-slippers over the red pine leaves on the forest floor, rejoicing in June, with their two broad curving green leaves."); April 25, 1859 ("This is the beginning of that season which, methinks, culminates with the buttercup and wild pink and Viola pedata")