The asters and goldenrods are now in their prime.

August 31.

P. M. – To Moore's Swamp.

Bidens cernua well out, the flowering one.

The asters and goldenrods are now in their prime, I think. 

August 31, 2020

The rank growth of flowers (commonly called weeds) in this swamp now impresses me like a harvest of flowers. I am surprised at their luxuriance and profusion.

The Solidago altissima is now the prevailing one, i. e. goldenrod, in low grounds where the swamp has been cleared. It occupies acres, densely rising as high as your head, with the great white umbel-like tops of the Diplopappus umbellatus rising above it.

There are also intermixed Solidago stricta, erechthites (fire-weed), Aster puniceus and longifolius, Galium asprellum in great beds, thoroughwort, trumpet-weed, Polygonum Hydropiper, Epilobium molle, etc., etc.

There has been no such rank flowering up to this. One would think that all the poison that is in the earth and air must be extracted out of them by this rank vegetation.

The ground is quite mildewy, it is so shaded by them, cellar-like.

Raspberries still fresh.

I see the first dogwood turned scarlet in the swamp.

Great black cymes of elder berries now bend down the bushes.

Saw a great black spider an inch long, with each of his legs an inch and three quarters long, on the outside of a balloon-shaped web, within which were young and a great bag.

Viola pedata out again.

Leaves of Hypericum mutilum red about water.

Cirsium muticum, in Moore's Swamp behind Indian field, going out of flower; perhaps out three weeks.

Is that very dense-flowered small white aster with short branched racemes A. Tradescanti? — now begun to be conspicuous.

A low aster by Brown's Ditch north of Sleepy Hollow like a Radula, but with narrower leaves and more numerous, and scales without herbaceous tips.

An orange-colored fungus.

Baird, in Patent Office Report, says, “In all deer, except, perhaps, the reindeer, if the male be castrated when the horns are in a state of perfection, these will never be shed; if the operation be performed when the head is bare, they will never be reproduced; and if done when the secretion is going on, a stunted, ill formed, permanent horn is the result.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 31, 1853


Bidens cernua well out, the flowering one. See August 20, 1852 ("Bidens, either connata or cernua, by Moore's potato- field. "); August 30, 1856 ("Bidens connata abundant at Moore's Swamp, how long?"); September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now")

The asters and goldenrods are now in their prime, I think. See July 26, 1853 ("I mark again, about this time when the first asters open. . . This the afternoon of the year."); July 28, 1852 ("Goldenrod and asters have fairly begun; there are several kinds of each out. "); August 30, 1853 ("Why so many asters and goldenrods now?") See also August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are . . .”); August 24, 1853(Goldenrods and asters);September 1, 1856 ("I think it stands about thus with asters and golden-rods now.”); September 24, 1856 (“Methinks it stands thus with goldenrods and asters now”); October 8, 1856 ("The following is the condition of the asters and goldenrods")

The great white umbel-like tops of the Diplopappus umbellatus [Tall flat-top white aster] See August 1, 1856 ("Diplopappus umbellatus at Peter's wall."); August 24, 1853 ("D. umbellatus is conspicuous enough in some places (low grounds)"); August 24, 1859 ("Diplopappus umbellatus, how long?"); September 1, 1856 ("D. umbellatus, perhaps in prime or approaching it, but not much seen."); September 24, 1856 ("D. umbellatus, still abundant.")

Great black cymes of elder berries now bend down the bushes. See August 29, 1854 ("The cymes of elder-berries, black with fruit, are now conspicuous.");  August 29, 1859 ("Elder-berry clusters swell and become heavy and therefore droop, bending the bushes down, just in proportion as they ripen. Hence you see the green cymes perfectly erect, the half-ripe drooping, and the perfectly ripe hanging straight down on the same bush."); September 1, 1859 ("The elder-berry cyme, held erect, is of very regular form, four principal divisions drooping toward each quarter around an upright central one.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Elder-berries

Viola pedata out again. See August 12, 1858 (“Saw a Viola pedata blooming again.”); September 4, 1856 ("Viola pedata again."); October 23, 1853 (" The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression. "); October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us"); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.”).

Leaves of Hypericum mutilum red about water See August 27, 1856 ("Hypericum Canadense and mutilum now pretty generally open at 4 P.M., thus late in the season"); October 2, 1856 ("Now and then I see a Hypericum Canadense flower still. The leaves, . . . turned crimson.")  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Is that very dense-flowered small white aster with short branched racemes A. Tradescanti?  See August 11, 1854 ("Aster Tradescanti, two or three days in low ground; flowers smaller than A. dumosus, densely racemed, with short peduncles or branchlets, calyx-scales narrower and more pointed."); August 14, 1856 ("Aster tradescanti, apparently a day or two."); August 30, 1859 ("Asters, especially Tradescanti, puniceus, corymbosus, dumosus, Diplopappus umbellatus"); September 1, 1854 (" The Aster Tradescanti is perhaps beginning to whiten the shores on moist banks."); September 1, 1856 ("A. Tradescanti, got to be pretty common, but not yet in prime.");
September 7, 1858 ("and now the moist banks and low hollows are beginning to be abundantly sugared with Aster Tradescantia"); September 10, 1853("The Aster Tradescanti, now in its prime, sugars the banks all along the riverside with a profusion of small white blossoms resounding with the hum of bees."): September 13, 1856 ("The Aster Tradescanti now sugars the banks densely, since I left, a week ago. Nature improves this her last opportunity to empty her lap of flowers.");September 14, 1856 ("Now for the Aster Tradescanti along low roads, like the Turnpike, swarming with butterflies and bees. Some of them are pink.");  September 21, 1858 (" Saw no Aster Tradescanti in this walk, but an abundance of A. multiflorus in its prime, in Salem and Marblehead."); September 27, 1856 ("The Aster multiflorus may easily be confounded with the A. Tradescanti. Like it, it whitens the roadside in some places. It has purplish disks, but a less straggling top than the Tradescanti.");  October 8, 1856 ("A. corymbosus, looks fresh! . . . of asters, only corymbosus, undulatus,Tradescanti, and longifolius . . .are common."); October 16, 1856 ("I notice these flowers on the way by the roadside, which survive the frost, . . . yarrow, some Aster Tradescanti, and some red clover."); October 25, 1853 ("In some places along the water's edge the Aster Tradescanti lingers still, some flowers purple, others white. The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight."); November 2, 1853 (Tthough [Aster undulatus ] is the latest aster that is abundant, I am not sure that it lasts absolutely longer than the A. puniceus, or even Tradescanti.")

Brown's Ditch north of Sleepy Hollow. According to Ray Angelo. Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts   Brown’s Ditch  was located in part of the Deacon Reuben Brown farm in a wetland north of Sleepy Hollow asssociated with Moore’s Swamp.