Black ducks flying northwest

September 30

September 30, 2023

Friday. Saw a large flock of black ducks flying northwest in the form of a harrow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 30, 1853

A large flock of black ducks flying northwest in the form of a harrow. See September 24, 1855 ("See coming from the south in loose array some twenty apparently black ducks . . .At first they were in form like a flock of blackbirds, then for a moment assumed the outline of a fluctuating harrow. "); September 29, 1851 ("Scared up three black ducks, which rose with a great noise of their wings, striking the water.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

A large flock of black

ducks flying northwest in the

form of a harrow.

https://tinyurl.com/HD7530930

The fringed gentian out.

September 28.

Wednesday. In Concord. 

The elm leaves are falling. 

The fringed gentian was out before Sunday; was (some of it) withered then, says Edith Emerson.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal. September 28, 1853

The elm leaves are falling. See September 28, 1857 ("Had one of those sudden cool gusts, which . . . caused the elms to labor and drop many leaves, early in afternoon. No such gust since spring.") See also  September 29, 1854 ("The elm leaves have in some places more than half fallen and strew the ground with thick rustling beds"); October 1, 1858 ("The elms are now great brownish-yellow masses hanging over the street. . . .The harvest of elm leaves is come, or at hand. ")

The fringed gentian was out before Sunday. See September 13, 1858 ("Fringed gentian out well, on easternmost edge of the Painted-Cup Meadows, by wall."); September 14, 1856 ("Fringed gentian well out."); September 18, 1854 ("Fringed gentian near Peter’s out a short time, . . ., it may after all be earlier than the hazel.”);  September 18, 1856 ("The gentian is now far more generally out here than the hazel."); September 18, 1859 ("From the observation of this year I should say that the fringed gentian opened before the witch-hazel"); September 29, 1857 ("I hear that some have gathered fringed gentian."); October 1, 1858 ("The fringed gentians are now in prime."); October 19, 1852 ("It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories; the latest of all to begin to bloom.”) See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Fringed Gentian

Ediith Emerson

The Emerson children found blue and white violets May 1st at Hubbard's Close, probably Viola ovata and blanda; but I have not been able to find any yet. May 5, 1853

The fringed gentian was out before Sunday; was (some of it) withered then, says Edith Emerson. September 28, 1853 

A-barberrying by boat to Conantum, carrying Ellen, Edith, and Eddie Journal, October 1, 1853

To Tarbell Hill again with the Emersons, a-berrying. Very few berries this year. Journal, August 7, 1855

Found a painted-cup with more yellow than usual in it, and at length Edith found one perfectly yellow") [ Lepidium campestre--. Cow cress. May 29, 1856

The Emerson children say that Aralia nudicaulis berries are good to eat. Journal, August 12, 1856

I hear that the Emerson children found ladies’-delights out yesterday. January 18, 1858

Edith Emerson has found, in the field (Merriam’s) just south of the Beck Stow pine grove, Lepidium campestre, which may have been out ten days.June 6, 1858

Edith Emerson shows me Oldenlandia purpurea var. longifolia, which she saw very abundantly in bloom on the Blue Hills (Bigelow's locality) on the 29th of June. Says she has seen the pine-sap this year in Concord. July 8, 1857

Viola ovata on bank above Lee's Cliff. Edith Emerson found them there yesterday; also columbines and the early potentilla April 13th !!! Journal, April 19, 1858

Edith Emerson has found, in the field (Merriam’s) just south of the Beck Stow pine grove, Lepidium campestre, which may have been out ten days. Journal , June 6, 1858


Edith Emerson gives me an Asclepias tuberosa from Naushon, which she thinks is now in its prime there. August 9, 1858


A year ago last spring I gave to Edith Emerson and to Sophia some clasping hound’s-tongue seeds, it being very rare hereabouts, wishing to spread it. Now and for a long time it has been a pest in the garden (it does not bloom till the second year), by its seeds clinging to our clothes. Mrs. E. has carried it to Boston thus, and I have spent twenty minutes at once in clearing myself of it. So it is in a fair way to be dispersed.Journal, September 6, 1858

E. Emerson's Calla palustris out the 27th. Journal, May 30, 1859

I hear that the Viola ovata was found the 17th and the 20th, and the bloodroot in E. Emerson's garden the 20th. Journal, April 22, 1860

The increasing scarlet and yellow tints around the meadows and river .

September 26


Dreamed of purity last night. The thoughts seemed not to originate with me, but I was invested, my thought was tinged, by another's thought. It was not I that originated, but I that entertained the thought.

The river is getting to be too cold for bathing. There are comparatively few weeds left in it.

It is not in vain, perhaps, that every winter the forest is brought to our doors, shaggy with lichens. Even in so humble a shape as a wood-pile, it contains sermons for us.

P. M. — To Ministerial Swamp.

The small cottony leaves of the fragrant everlasting in the fields for some time, protected, as it were, by a little web of cotton against frost and snow, — a little dense web of cotton spun over it, — entangled in it, — as if to restrain it from rising higher.

The increasing scarlet and yellow tints around the meadows and river remind me of the opening of a vast flower-bud; they are the petals of its corolla, which is of the width of the valleys. It is the flower of autumn, whose expanding bud just begins to blush. As yet, however, in the forest there are very few changes of foliage.

September 26, 2017

The Polygonum articulatum, giving a rosy tinge to Jenny's Desert and elsewhere, is very interesting now, with its slender dense racemes of rose-tinted flowers, apparently without leaves, rising cleanly out of the sand. It looks warm and brave; a foot or more high, and mingled with deciduous blue-curls. It is much divided, into many spreading slender-racemed branches, with inconspicuous linear leaves, reminding me, both by its form and its color, of a peach orchard in blossom, especially when the sunlight falls on it.

Minute rose-tinted flowers that brave the frosts and advance the summer into fall, warming with their color sandy hill sides and deserts, like the glow of evening reflected on the sand. Apparently all flower and no leaf.

A warm blush on the sands, after frosty nights have come. Perhaps it may be called the "evening red." Rising, apparently, with clean bare stems from the sand, it spreads out into this graceful head of slender rosy racemes, wisp-like. This little desert of less than [an] acre blushes with it.

I see now ripe, large (three-inch), very dark chocolate(?)-colored puffballs. Are then my five-fingers puffballs?
The tree fern is in fruit now, with its delicate, tendril-like fruit climbing three or four feet over the asters, goldenrods, etc., on the edge of the swamp. The large ferns are yellow or brown now.

Larks, like robins, fly in flocks.

Dogsbane leaves a clear yellow.

Succory in bloom at the Tommy Wheeler house. It bears the frost well, though we have not had much. Set out for use.

The Gnaphalium plantaginifolium leaves, green above, downy beneath.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 26, 1852

The river is getting to be too cold for bathing. See September 26 1854 ("Took my last bath the 24th . Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold."); September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over”)  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

The small cottony leaves of the fragrant everlasting in the fields for some time, protected, as it were, by a little web of cotton against frost and snow. See August 29, 1856 ("Fragrant everlasting in prime and very abundant, whitening Carter's pasture.”); February 25, 1857 (“The fragrant everlasting has retained its fragrance all winter.”)

The increasing scarlet and yellow tints remind me of the opening of a vast flower-bud; they are the petals of its corolla, the flower of autumn. See August 6, 1852 ("We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower."); June 5, 1853 (“The heavens and the earth are one flower. The earth is the calyx, the heavens the corolla.”); November 1, 1858 ("A man dwells in his native valley like a corolla in its calyx.")

I see now ripe, large (three-inch), very dark chocolate-colored puffballs. See October 2, 1858 ("A large chocolate-colored puffball “smokes.”")

Larks, like robins, fly in flocks. See August 27, 1858 ("Robins fly in flocks."); September 18, 1852 ("The robins of late fly in flocks, and I hear them oftener."); September 19, 1854 ("I see large flocks of robins keeping up their familiar peeping and chirping."); September 20, 1855 ("See larks in flocks on meadow."); October 1, 1858 ("See larks in small flocks."); October 13, 1855 ("Larks in flocks in the meadows, showing the white in their tails as they fly, sing sweetly as in spring.")

Dogsbane leaves a clear yellow See August 21, 1852 (“The leaves of the dogsbane are turning yellow”); See August 16, 1856 ("I find the dog's-bane (Apocynum androsoemifolium) bark not the nearly so strong as that of the A. cannabinum”). Note "Apocynum" means "poisonous to dogs".

See July 9, 1851 ("The handsome blue flowers of the succory or endive (Cichorium Intybus)."); October 2, 1856 ("Succory still, with its cool blue, here and there"); October 14, 1856 ("Any flowers seen now may be called late ones. I see perfectly fresh succory, not to speak of yarrow, a Viola ovata, . . .etc., etc.")

The scarlet of the dogwood is the most conspicuous and interesting of the autumnal colors at present.

September 25.

September 25, 2020

Polygonum dumetorum, climbing false-buck wheat, still; also dodder.

The fall dandelions are a prevailing flower on low turfy grounds, especially near the river.

Ranunculus reptans still.

The small galium (trifidum).

A rose again, apparently lucida (?). This is always unexpected.

The scarlet of the dogwood is the most conspicuous and interesting of the autumnal colors at present. You can now easily detect them at a distance; every one in the swamps you overlook is revealed.

The smooth sumach and the mountain is a darker, deeper, bloodier red.

Found the Bidens Beckii (?) September 1st, and the fringed gentian November 7th, last year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1852

The scarlet of the dogwood is the most conspicuous and interesting of the autumnal colors at present. See September 23, 1853 ("I observe the rounded tops of the dogwood bushes, scarlet in the distance, on the edge of the meadow . . . more full and bright than any flower."); see also August 30, 1854 (“Dogwood leaves have fairly begun to turn”); August 31, 1853 ("I see the first dogwood turned scarlet in the swamp"): October 28, 1858 ("The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case."); November 11, 1858 ("The flowering dogwood, though still leafy, is uninteresting and partly withered.")

A rose again, apparently lucida (?). This is always unexpected. See June 12, 1854 ("Rosa lucida, probably yesterday, the 11th, . . . A bud in pitcher the 13th.”); June 18, 1854 (“The Rosa lucida is pale and low on dry sunny banks like that by Hosmer's pines.”);  July 26, 1853 ("Saw one of the common wild roses (R. lucida?).")

Some hickories are yellow.

September 24.

According to Emerson, Lonicera hirsuta, hairy honeysuckle, grows in Sudbury.

Some hickories are yellow. 

Hazel bushes a brownish red. 

Most grapes are shrivelled.

Pasture thistle still.

The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long.

The fruit of the thorn trees on Lee's Hill is large, globular, and gray-dotted, but I cannot identify it certainly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 24, 1852

Some hickories are yellow. See note to October 4, 1858 ("The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed") and  October 8, 1856 ("The hickory leaves are among the handsomest now, varying from green through yellow."); October 10, 1857 ("Generally speaking, chestnuts, hickories, aspens, and some other trees attain a fair clear yellow only in small specimens in the woods or sprout-lands, or in their lower leaves.");October 15, 1858 ("Small hickories are the clearest and most delicate yellow in the shade of the woods.")

The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long. [Zizania aquatica var. aquatica ( Annual wild rice)] See July 22, 1854 ("Zizania, a day, with a handsome light-green panicle a foot or more long, a long slender stem, and corn-like leaves frequently more than an inch wide"); August 14, 1859 ("The zizania now makes quite a show along the river."); August 18, 1854  ("The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant."); August 24, 1858 ("The zizania is the greater part out of bloom; i. e., the yellowish-antlered (?) stamens are gone; the wind has blown them away"); September 3, 1858 ("Zizania still."); September 16, 1860 ("See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen."); September 25, 1858 ("The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it?")

The fruit of the thorn trees on Lee's Hill is large, globular, and gray-dotted, but I cannot identify it certainly. See September 23, 1852 ("I gathered some haws very good to eat to-day."); September 24, 1859 ("Those thorns by Shattuck's barn, now nearly leafless, have hard green fruit as usual.");  September 25, 1856  ("The haws of the common thorn are now very good eating and handsome."); September 25, 1856 ("the Crataegus Crus-Galli on the old fence line between Tarbell and T. Wheeler beyond brook are smaller, stale, and not good at all. “); See also   May 21, 1853 ("There are, apparently, two kinds of thorns close together on Nawshawtuct,"); June 6, 1857 ("There is a thorn now in its prime. . .with leaves more wedge-shaped at base than the Cratcegus coccinea; apparently a variety of it, between that and Crus-Galli."); September 4, 1853 ("The scarlet thorn is in many places quite edible and now a deep scarlet."); September 13, 1859("Some haws of the scarlet thorn are really a splendid fruit to look at now and far from inedible. "); October 5, 1857 ("I see many haws still green and hard, though their leaves are mostly fallen. Do they ever turn red and edible?")

A farmer in his field.

September 23

P. M. — Round by Clematis Brook.

The forget-me-not still.

I observe the rounded tops of the dogwood bushes, scarlet in the distance, on the edge of the meadow (Hubbard's), more full and bright than any flower.

The maples are mostly darker, the very few boughs that are turned, and the tupelo, which is reddening.

The ash is just beginning to turn.

The scarlet dogwood is the striking bush to-day.

I find huckleberries on Conantum still sound and blackening the bushes.

How much longer a mile appears between two blue mountain peaks thirty or more miles off in the horizon than one would expect!

Some acorns and hickory nuts on the ground, but they have not begun to shell.

Is it the nut of the Carya amara, with raised seams, but not bitter, that I perceive?

I suppose that is the Carya tomentosa, or mockernut hickory, with large rounded nuts on Lee's land.

The bitternuts (?), rubbed together, smell like varnish.

The sarothra in bloom.

The wind from the north has turned the white lily pads wrong side up, so that they look red, and their stems are slanted up-stream.

Almost all the yellow ones have disappeared.

September 23, 2018

A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red.

The woodbine high on trees in the shade a delicate pink.

I gathered some haws very good to eat to-day. I think they must be the senelles of the Canadians.

Hamamelis Virginiana out, before its leaves fall.

A woodchuck out.

The waxwork not opened.

The "feathery tails" of the clematis fruit conspicuous and interesting now.

Yellow lily out (again?) in the pond-holes.

Passing a corn-field the other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm. Any of his acquaintances would. He was only a trifle more weather-beaten] than when I saw him last. His back being toward me, I missed nothing, and I thought to myself if I were a crow I should not fear the balance of him, at any rate.

In northern latitudes, where other edible fruits are scarce, they make an account of haws and bunch-berries.

The barberry bushes in Clematis Hollow are very beautiful now, with their wreaths of red or scarlet fruit drooping over a rock.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1852

The scarlet dogwood is the striking bush to-day. See note to September 25, 1852 ("The scarlet of the dogwood is the most conspicuous and interesting of the autumnal colors at present.")

A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red. See September 23, 1860 ("I see everywhere in the shady yew wood those pretty round-eyed fungus-spots on the upper leaves of the blue-stemmed goldenrod, contrasting with the few bright-yellow flowers above them, -- yellowish-white rings (with a slate-colored centre), surrounded by green and then dark."); See also November 10, 1858 ("In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple.")

How much longer a mile appears between two blue mountain peaks thirty or more miles off in the horizon. See March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'); May 17, 1858 ("I doubt if in the landscape there can be anything finer than a distant mountain-range. They are a constant elevating influence."); August 14, 1854 (“I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon.— to behold and commune with something grander than man. “); August 30, 1854 ("The clearness of the air makes it delicious to gaze in any direction. . . ., and I see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses . . and to the mountains in the horizon."); October 20, 1852 ("This is an advantage of mountains in the horizon: they show you fair weather from the midst of foul."); October 22, 1857 ("But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it? "); November 4, 1857 ("But those grand and glorious mountains, how impossible to remember daily that they are there, and to live accordingly! They are meant to be a perpetual reminder to us, pointing out the way."): November 22, 1860 ("Simply to see to a distant horizon through a clear air, - the fine outline of a distant hill or a blue mountaintop through some new vista, - this is wealth enough for one afternoon.")  

The wind from the north has turned the white lily pads wrong side up, so that they look red. See June 29, 1852 ("The wind exposes the red undersides of the white lily pads. This is one of the aspects of the river now."); August 24,1854 ("The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads, turned up by the wind in broad fields on the sides of the stream, are a great ornament to the stream. It is not till August, methinks, that they are turned up conspicuously.”)

Carya amara, bitternut -- Carya tomentosa, mockernut hickory,( North American hickories include:

·        Carya glabra – pignut hickory

·       Carya laciniosa - shagbark hickory

·     Carya ovata – shagbark hickory

·      Carya texana  black hickory

·      Carya tomentosa  – mockernut hickory

·      Carya cordiformis (amara)  – bitternut hickory)

 

 

To Bangor.

September 21.

Started at 7 A. M., Wednesday.

In Guilford I went into a clapboard-mill on the Piscataquis.

In this town we took a new route, keeping the north side of the Piscataquis at first, through Foxcroft, Dover (quite a town), Garland, Charleston, East Corinth, Levant, Glenburn, and Hermon, to Bangor.

Saw robins in flocks going south.

Rode in the rain again.

A few oaks near Bangor.

Rained all day, which prevented the view of Ktaadn, otherwise to be seen in very many places.

Stumps cut high, showing the depth of the snows.

Straight roads and long hills.

The country was level to the eye for twenty or thirty miles toward the Penobscot Valley.

Most towns have an academy.

Even away up to ward the lake we saw a sort of gallows erected near one for the pupils to exercise upon.

I had not dreamed of such degeneracy so hard upon the primitive wilderness.

The white pines near Bangor perfectly parti-colored and falling to-day. 

Reached Bangor at dark.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1853

The white pines near Bangor perfectly parti-colored and falling to-day. See September 20, 1851 ("White pines on Fair Haven Hill begin to look parti-colored.")

Perambulating the imagination

September 20.

3 P. M. – To Cliffs via Bear Hill. 

September 20, 2020

As I go through the fields, endeavoring to recover my tone and sanity and to perceive things truly and simply again, after having been perambulating the bounds of the town all the week, and dealing with the most commonplace and worldly-minded men, and emphatically trivial things, I feel as if I had committed suicide in a sense.

I am again forcibly struck with the truth of the fable of Apollo serving King Admetus, its universal applicability.

A fatal coarseness is the result of mixing in the trivial affairs of men. Though I have been associating even with the select men of this and the surrounding towns, I feel inexpressibly begrimed.

My Pegasus has lost his wings; he has turned a reptile and gone on his belly.

Such things are compatible only with a cheap and superficial life.

The poet must keep himself unstained and aloof. Let him perambulate the bounds of Imagination's provinces, the realms of faery, and not the insignificant boundaries of towns. The excursions of the imagination are so boundless, the limits of towns are so petty.

I scare up the great bittern in meadow by the Heywood Brook near the ivy. He rises buoyantly as he flies against the wind, and sweeps south over the willow with outstretched neck, surveying.

The ivy here is reddened. The dogwood, or poison sumach, by Hubbard's meadow is also turned reddish.

Here are late buttercups and dwarf tree-primroses still.

Methinks there are not many goldenrods this year.

The river is remarkably low. There is a rod wide of bare shore beneath the Cliff Hill.

Last week was the warmest perhaps in the year.

On Monday of the present week water was frozen in a pail under the pump. Yet to-day I hear the locust sing as in August.

This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - cool and cloudless, bright days, filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes, preceded by frosty mornings. All tender herbs are flat in gardens and meadows. The cranberries, too, are touched.

To-day it is warmer and hazier, and there is, no doubt, some smoke in the air, from the burning of the turf and moss in low lands, where the smoke, seen at sunset, looks like a rising fog.

I fear that the autumnal tints will not be brilliant this season, the frosts have commenced so early.

Butter-and-eggs on Fair Haven.

The cleared plateau beneath the Cliff, now covered with sprouts, shows red, green, and yellow tints, like a rich rug.

I see ducks or teal flying silent, swift, and straight, the wild creatures.

White pines on Fair Haven Hill begin to look parti-colored with the falling leaves, but not at a distance.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 20, 1851

I scare up the great bittern in meadow by the Heywood Brook near the ivy. He rises buoyantly as he flies against the wind, and sweeps south over the willow with outstretched neck, surveying. See September 20, 1855 ("The great bittern, as it flies off from near the rail road bridge, filthily drops its dirt and utters a low hoarse kwa kwa; then runs and hides in the grass, and I land and search within ten feet of it before it rises.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Stake-Diver (American Bittern)

On Monday of the present week water was frozen in a pail under the pump. See September 15, 1851 ("Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost.")

This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - cool and cloudless, bright days, filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes, preceded by frosty mornings. See August 19, 1853 ("It is a glorious and ever-memorable day. . . . The first bright day of the fall" ); September 3, 1860 ("Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, day, -- a, cloudless sky, a clear air, with, maybe, veins of coolness”); September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day, warm but not too warm, a harvest day . . . the first unquestionable and conspicuous autumnal day,"); September 22, 1851 ("It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings"); October 10, 1857 ("The most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this.") October 11, 1857 ("This is the seventh day of glorious weather. Perhaps, these might be called Harvest Days"); December 9, 1853 ("The third (at least) glorious day, clear and not too cold . . .with peculiarly long and clear cloudless silvery twilights morn and eve")

White pines on Fair Haven Hill begin to look parti-colored. SeeAugust 24, 1854 ("The white pines are parti-colored there [Lee's Cliff]"); September 28, 1854 ("R. W. E.’s pines are parti-colored, preparing to fall, some of them.");. September 29, 1857 (". Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves");. October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish"); October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

Wood tortoises on the Assabet

September 19.

Up Assabet.

Do I see wood tortoises on this branch only?

About a week since, Mr. Thurston told me of his being carried by a brother minister to hear some music on the shore of a pond in Harvard, produced by the lapse of the waves on some stones.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1855

Do I see wood tortoises on this branch only? See September 15, 1855 ("An Emys insculpta which I mistook for dead, under water near shore; head and legs and tail hanging down straight. Turned it over, and to my surprise found it coupled with another. It was at first difficult to separate them with a paddle"); September 16, 1854 ("I see a wood tortoise in the woods. Why is it there now?"); October 21, 1857 (" I saw wood tortoises coupled up the Assabet, the back of the upper above water. It held the lower with its claws about the head, and they were not to be parted. "); November 11, 1859 ("I observed, October 23d, wood turtles copulating in the Assabet."); November 14, 1855 ("A clear, bright, warm afternoon. A painted tortoise swimming under water and a wood tortoise out on the bank.”) Compare March 28, 1857 (".Do I ever see a yellow-spot turtle in the river?"); April 1, 1857 ("Up Assabet. See an Emys guttata sunning on the bank. I had forgotten whether I ever saw it in this river") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

Perambulated the Lincoln line.

September 17.

Perambulated the Lincoln line.

Was it the small rough sunflower which I saw this morning at the brook near Lee's Bridge?

Saw at James Baker's a buttonwood tree with a swarm of bees now three years in it, but honey and all inaccessible.

John W. Farrar tells of sugar maples behind Miles's in the Corner.

Did I see privet in the swamp at the Bedford stone near Giles's house?

Swamp all dry now; could not wash my hands.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 17, 1851

Perambulated the Lincoln line. See September 15, 1851 ("Commenced perambulating the town bounds"); September 18, 1851 ("Perambulated Bedford line.") See also Septembeer 16, 1851 ("the inhabitants of Lincoln yield sooner than usual to the influence of the rising generation, and are a mixture of rather simple but clever with a well-informed and trustworthy people.")

Was it the small rough sunflower which I saw this morning at the brook near Lee's Bridge?  See July 29, 1853 (“The sight of the small rough sunflower about a dry ditch bank and hedge advances me at once further toward autumn.”); August 1, 1852 ("The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats”); August 13, 1858 ("H. divaricatus was abundantly out on the 11th."); August 19, 1851 ("Small rough sunflower by side of road between canoe birch and White Pond"); September 2, 1856 ("Also, a short time ago, I was satisfied that there was but one kind of sunflower (divaricatus) indigenous here.")


Sugar maples behind Miles's in the Corner. Charles Miles (1791- 864) resided at the corner of what is now Old-Road-to-Nine-Acre-Corner and Williams Road. ~ Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts(and in Lincoln, Massachusetts) & Other Botanical Sites in Concord compiled by Ray Angelo; See August 11, 1852 ("Aster corymbosus, path beyond Corner Spring and in Miles Swamp."); March 24, 1853 ("The white pine wood, freshly cut, piled by the side of the Charles Miles road, is agreeable to walk beside."); February 4, 1858 ("To C. Miles Swamp. Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole."); May 17, 1858 ("What a pleasant sandy road, soaking up the rain, that from the woods to the Miles house! The house becomes a controlling feature in the landscape when there is but one or two in sight."); 

Select men.

September 16.

Met the selectmen of Sudbury, ____and ____. I trust that towns will remember that they are supposed to be fairly represented by their select men.

From the specimen which Acton sent, I should judge that the inhabitants of that town were made up of a mixture of quiet, respectable, and even gentlemanly farmer people, well to do in the world, with a rather boisterous, coarse, and a little self-willed class; 

that the inhabitants of Sudbury are farmers almost exclusively, exceedingly rough and countrified and more illiterate than usual, very tenacious of their rights and dignities and difficult to deal with; 

that the inhabitants of Lincoln yield sooner than usual to the influence of the rising generation, and are a mixture of rather simple but clever with a well-informed and trustworthy people; 

that the inhabitants of Bedford are mechanics, who aspire to keep up with the age, with some of the polish of society, mingled with substantial and rather intelligent farmers.

____of Sudbury thinks the river would be still lower now if it were not for the water in the reservoir pond in Hopkinton running into it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 16, 1851

Commenced perambulating the town bounds.

September 15.

Monday.

Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost.

September 15, 2017

Commenced perambulating the town bounds.

At 7. 30 A. M. rode in company with —— and Mr. —— to the bound between Acton and Concord near Paul Dudley's.

Mr. —— told a story of his wife walking in the fields somewhere, and, to keep the rain off, throwing her gown over her head and holding it in her mouth, and so being poisoned about her mouth from the skirts of her dress having come in contact with poisonous plants.

At Dudley's, which house is handsomely situated, with five large elms in front, we met the selectmen of Acton, —— and —— 

Here were five of us.  It appeared that we weighed,  —— I think about 160,  ——155,  ——about 140, ——  130, myself 127.

——  described the wall about or at Forest Hills Cemetery in Roxbury as being made of stones upon which they were careful to preserve the moss, so that it cannot be distinguished from a very old wall.

Found one intermediate bound-stone near the powder mill drying-house on the bank of the river.

The work men there wore shoes without iron tacks.

He said that the kernel-house was the most dangerous, the drying house next, the press-house next. One of the powder mill buildings in Concord? 

The potato vines and the beans which were still green are now blackened and flattened by the frost.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 15, 1851


Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost. See September 15, 1859 ("This morning the first frost in the garden, killing some of our vines."); September 15, 1851("The potato vines and the beans which were still green are now blackened and flattened by the frost."); See also September 14, 1852 ("This morning the first frost"); September 21, 1854 ("The first frost in our yard last night,")

Found one intermediate bound-stone. See September 12, 1851 ("And the old selectmen tell me that, before the present split stones were set up in 1829, the bounds were marked by a heap of stones, and it was customary for each selectman to add a stone to the heap.")

He said that the kernel-house was the most dangerous. See January 7, 1853 ("The kernel-mill had blown up first, and killed three men who were in it, said to be turning a roller with a chisel. In three seconds after, one of the mixing-houses exploded.")

River rising.

September 14.

A. M. - - River still rising; at 4 P. M. one and an eighth inches higher than in morning.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 14, 1860

See September 15, 1860 ("Thus it reached its height the third day after the rain; had risen on the morning of the third day about thirty inches on account of the rain of one day (the 12th).")

These fall rains are a peculiarity of the season.

September 11. 

September 11, 2022

Genius is like the snapping-turtle born with a great developed head. 

They say our brain at birth is one sixth the weight of the body. 

Cranberries are being raked for fear of frosts. 

These fall rains are a peculiarity of the season. 

How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather! When I thought they were about done, they appear to revive, and moreover their beauty is enhanced, as if by the contrast of the louring atmosphere with their bright colors.

Such are the purple gerardia and the Bidens cernua.

The purple gerardia and blue-curls are interesting for their petals strewn about, beaten down by the rain.

Many a brook I look into is strewn with the purple petals of the gerardia, whose stalk is not obvious in the bank. 

Again the Potentilla Canadensis var. pumila, and dandelions occasionally.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 11, 1852

Genius is like the snapping-turtle born with a great developed head. See September 11, 1854 ("It does not so much impress me as an infantile beginning of life as an epitome of all the past of turtledom and of the earth. I think of it as the result of all the turtles that have been. ")

These fall rains are a peculiarity of the season. See August 25, 1852 ("One of those serious and normal storms ~ not a shower which you can see through, not a transient cloud that drops rain ~ something regular, a fall rain, coincident with a different mood or season of the mind."); August 26, 1859 ("The first fall rain is a memorable occasion, when the river is raised and cooled, and the first crop of sere and yellow leaves falls. The air is cleared; the dog-days are over; sun-sparkles are seen on water; crickets sound more distinctt"); September 20, 1856 ("Rain in afternoon. Rain again in the night, hard."); September 20, 1857 ("This is our first fall rain, and makes a dividing line between the summer and fall."); September 20, 1860 ("Rainy in forenoon.");

The Bidens cernua. See September 11, 1851 ("Bidens cernua, or nodding burr marigold, like a small sunflower (with rays) in Heywood Brook, i. e. beggar- tick."); September 12, 1851 ("the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals"); September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now, . . . the third and fourth are conspicuous and interesting, expressing by their brilliant yellow the ripeness of the low grounds"); September 13, 1852 ("The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook."); September 14, 1854 ("The great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory,. . . Full of the sun. It needs a name."); September 15, 1856 ("What I must call Bidens cernua, like a small chrysanthemoides, is bristly hairy, somewhat connate and apparently regularly toothed"); September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens,or beggar-ticks,or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Great Bidens

The Concord River at Lowell

September 9.

In Lowell.-- My host says that the thermometer was at 80° yesterday morning, and this morning is at 52º. 

Sudden coolness.

Clears up in afternoon, and I walk down the Merrimack on the north bank.

I see very large plants of the lanceolate thistle, four feet high and very branching.

Also Aster cordata with the corymbosus.

Concord River has a high and hard bank at its mouth, maybe thirty feet high on the east side; and my host thinks it was originally about as high on the west side, where now it is much lower and flat, having been dug down.

There is a small isle in the middle of the mouth.

There are rips in the Merrimack just below the mouth of the Concord.

There is a fall and dam in the Concord at what was Hurd's factory, — the principal fall on the Concord, in Lowell, — one at a bleachery above, and at Whipple's, — three in all below Billerica dam.

  

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, September 9, 1860

Seedling shrub oaks in a birch wood.

September 7. 

P. M. – To Cardinal Shore  

I see many seedling shrub oaks springing up in Potter's  field by the swamp-side, some (of last year) in the open pasture, but many more in the birch wood half a dozen rods west from the shrub oaks by the path. 

The former were dropped by the way. They plant in birch woods as in pines. This small birch wood has been a retreat for squirrels and birds. 

When I examine the little oaks in the open land there is always an effete acorn with them. 

Common rose hips as handsome as ever.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 7, 1860

They plant in birch woods as in pines. See June 3, 1856 (“As I have said before, it seems to me that the squirrels, etc., disperse the acorns, etc., amid the pines,") See also The Succession of Forest Trees ("It has long been known to observers that squirrels bury nuts in the ground, but I am not aware that any one has thus accounted for the regular succession of forests. . . .In short, they who have not attended particularly to this subject are but little aware to what an extent quadrupeds and birds are employed, especially in the fall, in collecting, and so disseminating and planting the seeds of trees.")


When I examine the little oaks in the open land there is always an effete acorn with them. See May 29, 1859 ("I pick up an oak tree three inches high with the acorn attached.")

The yellowing year.

September 6.

September 6, 2020
(Avesong)

The willows and button-bushes have very rapidly yellowed since I noticed them August 22d.

I think it was the 25th of August that I found the lower or older leaves of the willow twigs decidedly and rapidly yellowing and decaying on a near inspection. Now the change is conspicuous at a distance.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 6, 1860

The willows and button-bushes have very rapidly yellowed. See August 22, 1860 ("Now, when the mikania is conspicuous, the bank is past prime, - for lilies are far gone  the pontederia is past prime, willows and button-bushes begin to look the worse for the wear thus early , — the lower or older leaves of the willows are turned yellow and decaying , — and many of the meadows are shorn .  The already, methinks, yellowing willows and button-bushes , the half-shorn meadows, the higher water on their edges, with wool-grass standing over it, with the notes of flitting bobolinks and red wings of this year, in rustling flocks, all tell of the fall "); September 18, 1858 ("I am struck by the soft yellow-brown or brown-yellow of the black willows, . . .It is remarkable that the button-bushes beneath and mingling with them are of exactly the same tint and in perfect harmony with them. They are like two interrupted long brown-yellow masses of verdure resting on the water, a peculiarly soft and warm yellow. This is, perhaps, the most interesting autumnal tint as yet . . .The earth is yellowing in the September sun."); September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day, warm but not too warm, a harvest day (I am going down the railroad causeway), the first unquestionable and conspicuous autumnal day, when the willows and button-bushes are a yellowed bower in parallel lines along the swollen and shining stream.");  September 20, 1859 ("I suspect that the button-bushes and black willows have been as ripe as ever they get to be"); September 24, 1854 (The button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown, all but the protected parts. . . . The button-bushes thus withered suddenly paint with a rich brown the river’s brim."); September 24, 1855 ("The button bushes pretty well browned with frost (though the maples are but just beginning to blush), their pale yellowish season past."); October 4, 1857 ("The button-bushes are generally greenish-yellow now; only the highest and most exposed points brown and crisp in some places. The black willow, rising above them, is crisped yellowish-brown, so that the general aspect of the river's brim now is a modest or sober ripe yellowish-brown"); October 8, 1858 ("The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish "); October 10, 1858 ("November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, . . . letting in the autumn light to the water") See also August 12, 1854 ("It is already the yellowing year.")

An island of Aster puniceus, five feet high.

September 5. 

To Framingham. 

Saw, in a meadow in Wayland, at a little distance, what I have no doubt was an island of Aster puniceus, one rod in diameter, - one mass of flowers five feet high.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 5, 1853

An island of Aster puniceus, one rod in diameter, - one mass of flowers five feet high. October 7, 1857 ("Crossing Depot Brook, I see many yellow butterflies fluttering about the Aster puniceus, still abundantly in bloom there.")

The hawks are soaring at the Cliffs.

September 4.

5.30 A. M. – To Nawshawtuct by river.

Roman wormwood's yellow dust on my clothes.

Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare.

I do not succeed in making two varieties of Polygonum amphibium.

All mine, from three inches above water and floating to three feet high on dry land, are apparently one.

The first, at any rate, must be aquaticum, — floating, nearly smooth, and leaves more heart- shaped.

It appears by insensible gradations to pass into the other.

See one or two lilies yet.

The fragrance of a grape-vine branch, with ripe grapes on it, which I have brought home, fills the whole house. This fragrance is exceedingly rich, surpassing the flavor of any grape.


P. M. – To Cliffs via Hubbard ' s Swamp.

The skunk-cabbage fruit lies flat and black now in the meadow.

The Aster miser is a pretty flower, with its commonly wide and loose branches, variegated or parti-colored with its white rays and broad purplish (and yellow) disks giving it a modestly parti-colored look, with green leaves of sufficient breadth to relieve the flowers.

Would it not be worth the while to devote one day each year to collecting with pains the different kinds of asters, — perhaps about this time, — and another to the goldenrods? 

In Potter's dry pasture I saw the ground black with blackbirds (troopials?). As I approach, the front rank rises and flits a little further back into the midst of the flock, — it rolls up on the edges, — and, being thus alarmed, they soon take to flight, with a loud rippling rustle, but soon alight again, the rear wheeling swiftly into place like well- drilled soldiers. Instead of being an irregular and disorderly crowd, they appear to know and keep their places and wheel with the precision of drilled troops.

The lycopodium now sheds its pollen commonly.

The hawks are soaring at the Cliffs. I think I never hear this peculiar, more musical scream, such as the jay appears to imitate, in the spring, only at and after midsummer when the young begin to fly.

In Hubbard ' s Swamp Path.

Probably Solidago speciosa, though not yet in blossom there, very broad leaves, the radical- like plantain, covering the ground, and for the most part no more.

Carried a pail this afternoon to collect goldenrods and berries.

The skunk-cabbage common.

Hazels high time to gather; bushes browned.

After handling some beaked hazelnuts the other day, observed my hand covered with extremely fine, shining, glass- like bristles.

Arum in prime.

The crowded clusters of shrub oak acorns are very handsome now, the rich, wholesome brown of the cups contrasting with the now clear green acorns, sometimes twenty- four with a breadth of three inches.

China-like berries of cornel along the river now abundant, some cymes wholly white; also the panicled there and in swamps, though its little red (?) fingery stems are oftenest bare, but are pretty enough, perhaps, to take the place of the berries.

The black choke-berries, as also choke-cherries, are stale.

The two- leaved Solomon's-seal has just begun to redden; so the largest one.

The creeping juniper berries are now a hoary green but full-grown.

The scarlet thorn is in many places quite edible and now a deep scarlet.

Polygonum and medeola now.

Green briar only begins to turn.

Viburnum nudum rather stale.

Clintonia probably about gone.

Carrion-flower in prime.

Maple viburnum fully ripe, like the dentatum.

Aralia hispida getting old.

Feverwort now.

Rose hips generally beginning; and the two primroses beginning.

Elder in prime, and cranberry.

Smooth sumach stale.

Celtis green.

There are, perhaps, four kinds of goldenrod in C. Hubbard's Swamp Path which I am not certain about: one, which I have called S. puberula, with reddish stem; another, tall and slender, smooth, with a pyramidal panicle with four to six broad rays, leaves lanceolate, dwindling to mere bracts, appressed and entirish above, virgata-like, which I will call S. virgata, — though its leaves are not entire, — till I examine the stricta again; also another, with thin lanceolate leaves, symmetrically tapering at each end, rough on the edges and serrate, with, I believe, six or seven rays (specimen now withered), and this I have already named for convenience ulmifolia, but the leaves are not elm-like.

Also another, with eight to twelve (?) rays and much narrower leaves than the above three, very taper-pointed, sessile, and with margined petiole and wavy upper, entire lower, lanceolate-spatulate, and toothed slightly near end.

Has the stricta leafets in the axils?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1853



Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare. See September 6, 1858 ("Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect."); September 6, 1859 ("A half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops.")

 

The hawks are soaring at the Cliffs. See September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? There are eight or ten in sight from the Cliffs.");  October 28, 1857  ("Again, I hear the scream of a hen-hawk, soaring and circling onward.")

Would it not be worth the while to devote one day each year to collecting with pains the different kinds of asters, — perhaps about this time, — and another to the goldenrods? See 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")