The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow.

September 11.

September 11, 2021

2 P. M. - To Hubbard's Meadow Grove.

The skunk-cabbage's checkered fruit (spadix), one three inches long; all parts of the flower but the anthers left and enlarged.

Bidens cernua, or nodding burr marigold, like a small sunflower (with rays) in Heywood Brook, i. e. beggar- tick.

Bidens connata (?), without rays, in Hubbard's Meadow.

Blue-eyed grass still.

Drooping neottia very common.

I see some yellow butterflies and others occasionally and singly only.

The smilax berries are mostly turned dark.

I started a great bittern from the weeds at the swimming-place.

It is very hot and dry weather.

We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. Are they ever quite dry? Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation? What wells for the birds!

The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow, whose berries were fairest a fortnight ago, appears to be the Viburnum nudum, or withe-rod.

Our cornel (the common) with berries blue one side, whitish the other, appears to be either the Cornus sericea or C. stolonifera of Gray, i. e. the silky, or the red-osier cornel (osier rouge), though its leaves are neither silky nor downy nor rough.

This and the last four or five nights have been perhaps the most sultry in the year thus far.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 11, 1851

Bidens cernua and Bidens connata. See September 11, 1852 ("How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather!. . .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."); 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

Blue-eyed grass still. See August 25, 1851 and August 30, 1854 ("Blue-eyed grass still"). See also June 17. 1853 ("The dense fields of blue-eyed grass now blue the meadows, as if, in this fair season of the year, the clouds that envelop the earth were dispersing, and blue patches began to appear, answering to the blue sky. The eyes pass from these blue patches into the surrounding green as from the patches of clear sky into the clouds. "); September 23, 1859 ("So live that only the most beautiful wild-flowers will spring up where you have dwelt,") and note to May 29, 1853 ("That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention.')

We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. See August 18, 1854 ("We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty."); August 21, 1854 ("In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it."); August 22, 1854 ("I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew."); November 16, 1852 ("At Holden's Spruce Swamp. The water is frozen in the pitcher-plant leaf."); February 11, 1858 ("The water in the pitcher-plant leaves is frozen, but I see none burst. They are very tightly filled and smooth, apparently stretched.")

The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow, whose berries were fairest a fortnight ago, appears to be the Viburnum nudum, or withe-rod. See August 24, 1851 ("Is that the naked viburnum, so common, with its white, red, then purple berries, in Hubbard's meadow?"); August 24, 1852 ("The Viburnum nudum shows now rich, variegated clusters amid its handsome, firm leaves, bright rosy-cheeked ones mingled with dark-purple.  All do not appear to turn purple."); August 29, 1858 ("[J. Farmer] calls the Viburnum nudum 'withe-wood' and  makes a withe by treading on one end and twisting by the other till he cracks it and makes it flexible so that it will bend without breaking.") See also  August 28, 1852 ("The viburnums, dentatum and nudum, are in their prime. The sweet viburnum not yet purple, and the maple-leaved still yellowish."); August 28, 1856 ("The panicled cornel berries are whitening, but already mostly fallen."); August 28, 1852 ("The berries of the alternate leaved cornel have dropped off mostly."); August 31, 1856 ("The Viburnum nudum berries are now in prime, a handsome rose-purple."); September 3, 1856 ("Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. The berries, which are of various sizes and forms, — elliptical, oblong, or globular, — are in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. If gathered when rose-colored, they soon turn dark purple and are soft and edible, though before bitter. They add a new and variegated wildness to the swampy sprout-lands. Remarkable for passing through so many stages of color before they arrive at maturity. A singular and pleasing contrast, also, do the different kinds of viburnum and cornel berries present when compared with each other.") 

Our cornel (the common) with berries blue one side, whitish the other, appears to be either the Cornus sericea or C. stolonifera of Gray, i. e. the silky, or the red-osier cornel. See June 13, 1852 ("I think I know four kinds of cornel beside the dogwood and bunchberry: . . . (Cornus alternifolia? or sericea?); . . . (C. circinata?); . . . (C. paniculata); and the red osier by the river (C. stolonifera), which I have not seen this year."); August 28, 1852 ("Now the red osier berries are very handsome along the river, overhanging the water, for the most part pale blue mixed with whitish, -- part of the pendant jewelry of the season. . . . The white-berried and red osier are in their prime. The other three kinds I have not seen.); August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river."); August 31, 1856 (“The Cornus sericea, with its berries just turning,"); September 1, 1854 ("The Cornus sericea berries are now in prime, of different shades of blue, lighter or darker, and bluish white. . . .a great ornament to our causeways and riverside.”); September 3, 1856 (“The white berries of the panicled cornel, soon and apparently prematurely dropping from its pretty fingers, are very bitter. So also are those of the C. sericea. ”); September 4, 1857 ("Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen") September 4, 1859 ("The Cornus sericea and C. paniculata are rather peculiar for turning to a dull purple on the advent of cooler weather and frosts,"); September 7, 1856 ("Apparently Cornus stolonifera (?) by brook . . . with the sericea. ")   See also August 27, 1856 ("There are many wild-looking berries about now."); September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man.. . .Berries which are as beautiful as flowers, but far less known, the fruit of the flower."); September 11, 1859 ("September is the month when various small, and commonly inedible, berries in cymes and clusters hang over the roadsides and along the walls and fences, or spot the forest floor. ")