The St. John's-worts begin to bloom..

July 13. 

July 13, 2020

Purslane, probably to-day.

Chenopodium album.

Pontederias in prime.

Purple bladderwort (Utricularia purpurea), not long, near Hollowell place, the buds the deepest-colored, the stems rather loosely leaved or branched, with whorls of five or six leaves.

On the hard, muddy shore opposite Dennis’s, in the meadow, Hypericum Sarothra in dense fields, also Canadense, both a day or two, also ilysanthes, sium with leaves a third of an inch wide, and the cardinal flower, probably the 11th.

Hypericum mutilum in the meadow, maybe a day or two.

Whorled bladderwort, for some time, even gone to seed; this, the purple, and the common now abundant amid the pads and rising above them.

Potamogeton compressus (?) immersed, with linear leaves. I see no flower.

I believe it is the radical leaves of the heart-leaf, — large, waved, transparent, — which in many places cover the bottom of the river where five or six feet deep, as with green paving-stones. Did not somebody mistake these for the radical leaves of the kalmiana lily?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1853

Hypericum Sarothra in dense fields, also Canadense, both a day or two, also Hypericum mutilum in the meadow, maybe a day or two. See  July 14, 1854 ("The red capsules of the Hypericum ellipticum, here and there. This one of the fall-ward phenomena in still rainy days."); July 15, 1856 ("Both small hypericums, Canadense and mutilum, apparently some days at least by Stow's ditch."); July 19, 1856 ("It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now."); July 25, 1856 ("Up river to see hypericums out."); July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening. . . . The pod of the ellipticum, when cut, smells like a bee."); August 19, 1856 ("The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like."); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”)  See also July 19, 1851 ("First came the St. John's-wort and now the goldenrod to admonish us. . . .Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Whorled bladderwort, the purple, and the common now abundant. .See  July 13, 1852 ("The pool by Walden is now quite yellow with the common utricularia (vulgaris).") See also August 3, 1856 ("The purple utricularia abundant "); August 5, 1854 ("I see very few whorled or common utricularias, but the purple ones are exceedingly abundant on both sides the river"); September 1, 1857 ("On the west side of Fair Haven Pond, an abundance of the Utricularia purpurea and of the whorled, etc., whose finely dissected leaves are a rich sight in the water")

Did not somebody mistake these for the radical leaves of the kalmiana lily?  See July 27, 1856 ("I am surprised to find kalmiana lilies scattered thinly all along the Assabet, a few small, commonly reddish pads in middle of river, but I see no flowers. It is their great bluish waved (some green) radical leaves which I had mistaken for those of the heart-leaf, the floating leaves being so small. . . .The radical leaves of the heart-leaf are very small and rather triangular.")

July 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

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 © 2009-2021