Saturday.
The date of the introduction of
the Rhododendron maximum into Concord is worth preserving, May 16th, ’53. They
were small plants, one to four feet high, some with large flower-buds, twenty-five
cents apiece; and I noticed next day one or more in every front yard on each
side of the street, and the inhabitants out watering them. Said to be the most
splendid native flower in Massachusetts; in a swamp in Medfield. I hear to-day
that one in town has blossomed.
George Minott says he saw many
lightning-bugs a warm evening the forepart of this week, after the rains.
Probably it was the 29th.
P. M. – To Hubbard’s Close Swamp.
The vetch just out by Turnpike, —
dark violet purple.
Horse-radish fully out (some time).
The great ferns are already two
or three feet high in Hubbard’s shady swamp.
The clintonia is abundant there
along by the foot of the hill, and in its prime. Look there for its berries.
Commonly four leaves there, with an obtuse point, — the lady’s-slipper leaf not
so rich, dark green and smooth, having several channels.
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| June 4, 2020 |
The bullfrog now begins to be
heard at night regularly; has taken the place of the hylodes.
Looked over the oldest town
records at the clerk’s office this evening, the old book containing grants of
land. Am surprised to find such names as “Walden Pond” and “Fair Haven” as
early as 1653, and apparently 1652; also, under the first date at least, “Second
Division,” the rivers as North and South Rivers (no Assabet at that date), “Swamp
bridge,” apparently on back road, “Goose Pond,” “Mr. Flints Pond,” “Nutt Meadow,”
“Willow Swamp,” “Spruce Swamp,” etc., etc. “Dongy,” “Dung Hole,” or what-not,
appears to be between Walden and Fair Haven.
Is Rocky Hill Mr. Emerson’s or
the Cliffs? Where are South Brook, Frog Ponds, etc., etc., etc.?
It is pleasing
to read these evergreen wilderness names, i. e. of particular swamps and woods,
then applied to now perchance cleared fields and meadows said to be redeemed.
The Second Division appears to have been a very large tract between the two
rivers.
H.
D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4, 1853
The clintonia is abundant there along by the foot of the hill, and in its prime. See June 2, 1853 ("Clintonia borealis, a day or two. This is perhaps the most interesting and neatest of what I may call the liliaceous (?) plants we have. Its beauty at present consists chiefly in its commonly three very handsome, rich, clear dark-green leaves . . . arching over from a centre at the ground, sometimes very symmetrically disposed in a triangular fashion; and from their midst rises the scape [ a ] foot high, with one or more umbels of“green bell - shaped flowers,” yellowish-green, nodding or bent downward"); June 10, 1855 ("Clintonia, apparently four or five days (not out at Hubbard’s Close the 4th).")
The bullfrog now begins to be heard at night regularly; has taken the place of the hylodes. See May 10, 1858 ("At length, near Ball's Hill, I hear the first regular bullfrog's trump. . . . This sound, heard low and far off over meadows when the warmer hours have come, grandly inaugurates the summer. "); June 13, 1851 ("The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog."); June 15, 1860 ("The bullfrogs now commonly trump at night, and the mosquitoes are now really troublesome. For some time I have not heard toads by day, and the hylodes appear to have done. . . . A new season begun");See also June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th . . .")
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