August 24.
Another cool, autumn-like morning, also quite foggy.
Rains a little in the forenoon and cloudy the rest of the day.
P. M. – To Saw Mill Brook via Trillium Woods.
A cool breeze blows this cloudy afternoon, and I wear a thicker coat.
The mulgedium by railroad is seven feet high, with great panicles of a regular, somewhat elliptic-lanceolate (?) form, two and a half feet long by ten inches.
The Prinos lævigatus berries begin to redden.
The farmers are beginning to clear out their ditches now.
Blue-stemmed goldenrod, apparently a few days in some places.
The goldenrods which I have observed in bloom this year are (I do not remember the order exactly):
- (1) stricta,
- (2) lanceolata,
- (3) arguta (?),
- (4) nemoralis,
- (5) bicolar,
- (6) odora,
- (7) altissima,
- (8) ulmifolia (?),
- (9) cæsia.
The 1st perhaps next, though it may be getting old.
The altissima (7th) certainly next. It is just beginning to be abundant. Its tops a foot or more broad, with numerous recurved racemes on every side, with yellow and yellowing triangular points. It is the most conspicuous of all.
The bicolor (5th) next, though not conspicuous.
The 3d, 8th, 2d, and 6th perhaps never abundant.
The cæsia (9th) just begun.
The asters and diplopappi are about in this order:
- (1) Radula,
- (2) D. cornifolius (?),
- (3) A. corymbosus,
- (4) patens,
- (5) lævis,
- (6) dumosus (?),
- (7) miser,
- (8) macrophyllus,
- (9) D. umbellatus,
- (10) A. acuminatus,
- (11) puniceus.
The 1st, or Radula, is not abundant.
(These three are all the distinctly blue ones yet.)
The dumosus is the prevailing white one, very abundant; miser mixed with it.
D. umbellatus is conspicuous enough in some places (low grounds), and A. puniceus beginning to be so.
But D. cornifolius, A. corymbosus, macrophyllus, and acuminatus are confined to particular localities.
Dumosus and patens (and perhaps lævis, not common enough) are the prevailing asters now.
D. umbellatus is conspicuous enough in some places (low grounds), and A. puniceus beginning to be so.
But D. cornifolius, A. corymbosus, macrophyllus, and acuminatus are confined to particular localities.
Dumosus and patens (and perhaps lævis, not common enough) are the prevailing asters now.
The common large osmunda (?) is already consider ably imbrowned, but the odorous dicksonia (?), which, like most ferns, blossoms later, is quite fresh.
This thin, flat, beautiful fern it is which I see green under the snow.? I am inclined to call it the lace fern.
(Peaches fairly begun.)
It is a triangular web of fine lace-work surpassing all the works of art.
Solidago latifolia not yet.
I see roundish silvery slate-colored spots, surrounded by a light ring, near the base of the leaves of an aster (miser ?), one beneath another like the dropping of a bird, or as if some tincture had fallen from above.
Some of the leaves of the A. patens are red.
The alternate cornel berries, which are particularly apt to drop off early, are a dark, dull blue, not china-like.
I see those of maple-leaved viburnum merely yellowish now.
There grows by Saw Mill Brook a long firmer, thimble-shaped high blackberry with small grains, with more green ones still on it, which I think like the New Hampshire kind.
I see some black and some greenish light slate-colored fungi. This certainly is the season for fungi.
I see on the shrub oaks now caterpillars an inch and a half or more long, black with yellowish stripes, lying along the petioles, — thick living petioles. They have stripped off the leaves, leaving the acorns bare.
The Ambrina (Chenopodium, Bigelow) Botrys, Jerusalem-oak, a worm-seed, by R. W. E.' s heater piece. The whole plant is densely branched — branches spike-like-and appears full of seed. Has a pleasant, more distinct wormwood-like odor.
In a dry sprout-land (Ministerial Lot), what I will call Solidago puberula will open in a day or two, — upright and similar to stricta in leaves, with a purple stem and smooth leaves, entire above, and a regular oblong appressed panicle.
Bidens chrysanthemoides, of a small size and earlier, by Turn pike, now in prime there.
I see cattle coming down from up-country. Why?
Yellow Bethlehem-star still.
A. miser (?), with purplish disk and elliptic-lanceolate leaves, serrate in middle, may be as early as dumosuus.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 24, 1853
The goldenrods which I have observed in bloom this year .(1) stricta,(2) lanceolata,(3) arguta (?),(4) nemoralis etc. . . .The asters are about in this order:(1) Radula,(2) D. cornifolius (?), (3) A. corymbosus, etc.. Compare August 24, 1851 ("The autumnal flowers, — goldenrods, asters, and johnswort, — though they have made demonstrations, have not yet commenced to reign."): August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are, lst, stricta. . .; 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last); 3d, altissima, though commonly only a part of its panicles; 4th, nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom. . . .The commonest asters now are, 1st, the Radula; 2d, dumosus; 3d, patens etc. ); August 30, 1859 ("The prevailing flowers, considering both conspicuous-ness and numbers, at present time, as I think now: Solidagos, especially large three-ribbed, nemoralis, tall rough, etc.; Asters, especially Tradescanti, puniceus, corymbosus, dumosus, Diplopappus umbellatus")
Solidago latifolia not yet.
I see roundish silvery slate-colored spots, surrounded by a light ring, near the base of the leaves of an aster (miser ?), one beneath another like the dropping of a bird, or as if some tincture had fallen from above.
Some of the leaves of the A. patens are red.
The alternate cornel berries, which are particularly apt to drop off early, are a dark, dull blue, not china-like.
I see those of maple-leaved viburnum merely yellowish now.
There grows by Saw Mill Brook a long firmer, thimble-shaped high blackberry with small grains, with more green ones still on it, which I think like the New Hampshire kind.
I see some black and some greenish light slate-colored fungi. This certainly is the season for fungi.
I see on the shrub oaks now caterpillars an inch and a half or more long, black with yellowish stripes, lying along the petioles, — thick living petioles. They have stripped off the leaves, leaving the acorns bare.
The Ambrina (Chenopodium, Bigelow) Botrys, Jerusalem-oak, a worm-seed, by R. W. E.' s heater piece. The whole plant is densely branched — branches spike-like-and appears full of seed. Has a pleasant, more distinct wormwood-like odor.
In a dry sprout-land (Ministerial Lot), what I will call Solidago puberula will open in a day or two, — upright and similar to stricta in leaves, with a purple stem and smooth leaves, entire above, and a regular oblong appressed panicle.
Bidens chrysanthemoides, of a small size and earlier, by Turn pike, now in prime there.
I see cattle coming down from up-country. Why?
Yellow Bethlehem-star still.
A. miser (?), with purplish disk and elliptic-lanceolate leaves, serrate in middle, may be as early as dumosuus.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 24, 1853
The goldenrods which I have observed in bloom this year .(1) stricta,(2) lanceolata,(3) arguta (?),(4) nemoralis etc. . . .The asters are about in this order:(1) Radula,(2) D. cornifolius (?), (3) A. corymbosus, etc.. Compare August 24, 1851 ("The autumnal flowers, — goldenrods, asters, and johnswort, — though they have made demonstrations, have not yet commenced to reign."): August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are, lst, stricta. . .; 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last); 3d, altissima, though commonly only a part of its panicles; 4th, nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom. . . .The commonest asters now are, 1st, the Radula; 2d, dumosus; 3d, patens etc. ); August 30, 1859 ("The prevailing flowers, considering both conspicuous-ness and numbers, at present time, as I think now: Solidagos, especially large three-ribbed, nemoralis, tall rough, etc.; Asters, especially Tradescanti, puniceus, corymbosus, dumosus, Diplopappus umbellatus")
This certainly is the season for fungi.See September 10, 1854 ("Last year, for the last three weeks of August, the woods were filled with the strong musty scent of decaying fungi, but this year I have seen very few fungi and have not noticed that odor at all.")
The farmers are beginning to clear out their ditches now. See August 21, 1859 ("Many are ditching."); August 28, 1854 ("The farmers improve this dry spell to cut ditches and dig mud in the meadows and pond-holes. I see their black heaps in many places. ")
D. umbellatus is conspicuous enough in some places (low grounds), and A. puniceus beginning to be so. See August 24, 1859 ("Aster puniceus and Diplopappus umbellatus, how long? ")
A long firmer, thimble-shaped high blackberry with small grains. See August 24, 1859 ("The small sempervirens blackberry in prime in one place. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries
I see cattle coming down from up-country. Why? See September 6, 1859 ("Hear the sounds nowadays — the lowing, tramp, and calls of the drivers — of cows coming down from up-country."); September 20, 1852 ("Droves of cattle have for some time been coming down from up-country"); October 28, 1858 ("Cattle coming down from up country.") See also note to April 30, 1860 ("Cattle begin to go up-country.")
D. umbellatus is conspicuous enough in some places (low grounds), and A. puniceus beginning to be so. See August 24, 1859 ("Aster puniceus and Diplopappus umbellatus, how long? ")
A long firmer, thimble-shaped high blackberry with small grains. See August 24, 1859 ("The small sempervirens blackberry in prime in one place. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries
I see cattle coming down from up-country. Why? See September 6, 1859 ("Hear the sounds nowadays — the lowing, tramp, and calls of the drivers — of cows coming down from up-country."); September 20, 1852 ("Droves of cattle have for some time been coming down from up-country"); October 28, 1858 ("Cattle coming down from up country.") See also note to April 30, 1860 ("Cattle begin to go up-country.")
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