The maple-tops begin to look red now with the growing keys

May 6. 

May 6 2017

P. M. – To Nut Meadow Brook and Corner Spring.

Choice plum in gardens.

The Salix alba is conspicuous and interesting in the landscape now, some bright yellow, truly golden (staminate?), some greenish, filling the air of causeways with a sweet scent.

The whole landscape is many shades greener for the rain, almost a blue green.

The leafing of the trees has commenced, and the forms of some, accordingly, begin to be defined.

Some, however, like the large maples, elms, etc., look heavy and are defined by their samaræ and not yet by their leaves, which are not comparatively forward.

I perceive the strong odor of horse-mint, rising dark above the brooks.

Hear the loud echoing note of the peet-weet-weet-weet-weet.

Viola cucullata at John Hosmer's ditch by Clamshell Hill.

Four large robin's eggs in an apple tree.

A ground-bird's nest with eggs.

Equisetum sylvaticum in front of Hosmer's Gorge.

I have seen no ducks since I returned from Haverhill on the 29th April.

There are pretty large leaves on the young red maples (which have no flowers), disposed crosswise, as well as on the sugar maple, but not so with larger flowering maples.

The maple-tops begin to look red now with the growing keys, at a distance, — crescents of red.

Uvularia sessilifolia just begun.

Common knawel, apparently for some time, though Bigelow says July (?).

Those long spear-shaped buds of the viburnum have expanded into dark but handsome leaves rather early; probably Viburnum nudum.

As I walk through the village at evening, when the air is still damp after the rainy morning, I perceive and am exhilarated by the sweet scent of expanding leaves.

The woods are beginning to be in the gray now; leaves and flower- buds generally expanding, covered with a mealy or downy web (which now reminds me of those plants like gnaphalium, swathed in cotton), a clean dirt, which whitens the coat of the walker.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 6, 1853

There are pretty large leaves on the young red maples.The maple-tops begin to look red now with the growing keys. See May 9, 1855 ("A large red maple just begun to leaf - its keys an inch and a half long.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

Those long spear-shaped buds of the viburnum have expanded into dark but handsome leaves rather early. See April 30, 1859 ("The viburnum buds are so large and long, like a spear-head, that they are conspicuous the moment their two leafets diverge and they are lit up by the sun. They unfold their wings like insects and arriving warblers.")

Four large robin's eggs in an apple tree. See May 6. 1855 (''A robin’s nest with two eggs, betrayed by peeping.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in
Spring

I perceive and am exhilarated by the sweet scent of expanding leaves. See May 16, 1854 ("A sweet scent fills the air from the expanding leafets. The earth is all fragrant as one flower."); May 18, 1851 ("There is a peculiar freshness about the landscape; you scent the fragrance of new leaves,")