Gray goldenrod at Hosmer's secluded turtle field near the bridge,

September 2. 

P . M . – To Annursnack. 

Solidago nemoralis apparently in prime, and S. stricta  The former covers A. Hosmer's secluded turtle field near the bridge, together with johnswort, now merely lingering.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 2, 1860

Solidago nemoralis [Gray Goldenrod] apparently in prime. See August 18, 1854 ("The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields.”); September 1, 1856 ("S. nemoralis, not quite in prime, but very abundant."); September 6, 1858 ("Solidago nemoralis is apparently in prime on Lupine Hill; some of it past. It is swarming with butterflies, — yellow, small red, and large, — fluttering over it"); September 7, 1858 ("It is an early September afternoon, melting warm and sunny; the thousands of grasshoppers leaping before you reflect gleams of light; a little distance off the field is yellowed with a Xerxean army of Solidago nemoralis between me and the sun"); September 12, 1859 ("The golden-rod on the top and the slope of the hill are the Solidago nemoralis . . . Many a dry field now, like that of Sted Buttrick's on the Great Fields, is one dense mass of the bright golden recurved wands of the Solidago nemoralis, waving in the wind and turning upward to the light hundreds, if not a thousand, flowerets each. It is the greatest mass of conspicuous flowers in the year, uniformly from one to two feet high, just rising above the withered grass all over the largest fields, now when pumpkins and other yellow fruits begin to gleam, now before the woods are noticeably changed.")   See also September 27, 1857 ("Solidago nemoralis nearly done"); October 6, 1858 ("Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost."); October 8, 1856 ("Asters and goldenrods are now scarce; no longer that crowd along the low roadsides. . . S. nemoralis, done, many hoary, though a very few flowers linger."); October 23, 1853 (" I notice these flowers still along the railroad causeway: fresh sprouts from the root of the Solidago nemoralis in bloom"); November 10, 1858 ("Some very handsome Solidago nemoralis in bloom on Fair Haven Hill. (Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost.)")

A. Hosmer's secluded turtle field near the bridge, See October 10, 1858 (" . . .the turtle field of A. Hosmer’s by Eddy Bridge.");  See also  May 1, 1859 ("Over Hosmer's meadow, about half covered with water, see hundreds of turtles, chiefly picta, now first lying out in numbers on the brown pieces of meadow which rise above the water. . . .There is to-day a general resurrection of them, and there they bask in the sun. It is their sabbath. ") [ Hosmer Flat Meadow is a Sudbury River meadow just northeast of Clamshell Hill.~ Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts compiled by Ray Angelo]



<<<<< September 1, 1860: ("Cherries are especially birds' food, and . . . I shall think the birds have the best right to them..")

September 3, 1860 ("Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, day, -- a, cloudless sky, a clear air, with, maybe, veins of coolness”) >>>>