Fall flowers

 October 9.

Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris)

 

Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.

My rainbow rush must be the Juncus militaris, not yet colored.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 9, 1852

Touch-me-not. See August 15, 1851 ("Impatiens, noli-me-tangere, or touch-me-not, with its dangling yellow pitchers or horns of plenty, which I have seen for a month by damp causeway thickets"); September 27, 1852 ("The touch-me-not seed-vessels go off like pistols, — shoot their seeds off like bullets. They explode in my hat.")

Self-heal, Prunella vulgaris; Gerard said "there is not a better wounde herbe in the world.'" See August 18, 1853 ("The sound of so many insects and the sight of so many flowers affect us so, — the creak of the cricket and the sight of the prunella and autumnal dandelion. They say, "For the night cometh in which no man may work."") See also June 9, 1853 ("Prunella out."); June 15 , 1851 ("The prunella too is in blossom "); July 16, 1851 ("The prunella sends back a blue ray from under my feet as I walk."); July 17, 1852 ("At evening the prunellas in the grass like the sky glow purple, which were blue all day. ")

Bidens cernua. See 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 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.")

Ladies'-tresses. See August 20, 1851 ("The neottia, or ladies'-tresses),

Cerastium. See October 4, 1853 ("The mouse-ear in the shade in the middle of the day, so hoary, looks as if the frost still lay on it. Well it wears the frost."); November 16, 1852 ("At Lee's Cliff the Cerastium viscosum.")

Silvery cinque-foil. See October 9, 1851 ("The hoary cinquefoil in blossom.") See also  October 2, 1857 ("There is a more or less general reddening of the leaves at this season, down to the cinquefoil and mouse-ear, sorrel and strawberry under our feet.")

Mayweed. See September 14, 1856 ("Mayweed! what a misnomer! Call it rut-weed rather."); October 16, 1856 ("I notice these flowers on the way by the roadside, which survive the frost, . . . mayweed, tall crowfoot, autumnal dandelion, yarrow, ...”); October 20, 1852 ("Canada snapdragon, tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed. ")

My rainbow rush must be the Juncus militaris. See August 30, 1858 ("The Juncus militaris has been long out of bloom. . . .This is my rainbow rush."); October 27, 1858 ("Though a single stalk would not attract attention, when seen in the mass they have this singular effect. I call it, therefore, the rainbow rush. When, moreover, you see it reflected in the water, the effect is very much increased.")