I see where the crickets are eating the wild strawberries.

June 20. 

 Tuesday. 

June 20, 2014

Motherwort to-morrow. 

Elder. 

A cloud of minute black pollywogs in a muddy pool. I see where the crickets are eating the wild strawberries. 

P. M. - To Shadbush Meadow. 

Heard a new bird –– chut-cheeter-varrer-chutter-wit ––on the low bushes, about the size of Wilson's thrush apparently. Apparently olivaceous (?) above, most so on head, yellow front, dark bill, dark wings with two white bars, all yellow or yellowish breast and beneath. Perhaps never heard it before. 

Cow-wheat, apparently two or three days.

A three-leaved Lysimachia stricta apparently, with reddish flower-buds, not open. 

Shad-berries almost, but scarce. 

There seems to be much variety in the Rosa lucida, some to have stouter hooked prickles than the R. Carolina.  

Upland haying begun, or beginning. 

Common nettle.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, June 20, 1854


Motherwort to-morrow. See June 29, 1852 ("Leonurus Cardiaca, motherwort, a nettle-like plant by the street-side.")

Elder. See June 21, 1852 ("Elder is blossoming; flowers opening now where black berries will be by and by.")

A cloud of minute black pollywogs in a muddy pool..See June 15, 1852 ("This half-stagnant pond-hole, drying up and leaving bare mud, with the pollywogs and turtles making off in it, is agreeable and encouraging to behold, as if it contained the seeds of life, the liquor rather, boiled down. The foulest water will bubble purely.");  See also June 15, 1851 ("The pollywogs in the pond are now fulltailed"); June 15, 1855 ("Many pollywogs an inch long.") and note to May 19, 1857 ("See myriads of minute pollywogs, recently hatched, in the water of Moore's Swamp.")

I see where the crickets are eating the wild strawberries. See June 22, 1851 ("Only in the quiet of evening do I so far recover my senses as to hear the cricket, which in fact has been chirping all day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in Spring and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Strawberries

Cow-wheat, apparently two or three days. See June 14, 1859 ("Cow-wheat, how long ?"); June 16, 1856 ("Cow-wheat numerously out."); June 19, 1853 ("Cow-wheat out"); August 6, 1851("After how few steps, how little exertion, the student stands in pine woods above the Solomon's-seal and the cow-wheat, in a place still unaccountably strange and wild to him, and to all civilization!") [Cow-wheat is a native annual hemiparasite (partially parasitic), using specialized root structures to invade the roots of its host and steal nutrients, while also performing photosynthesis. Its hosts may be several species of pine (Pinus) and poplar (Populus) ~ GoBotany].

Shad-berries almost, but scarce. See June 25, 1853. ("An unusual quantity of amelanchier berries, – I think of the two common kinds . . . Both these are now in their prime. These are the first berries after strawberries. . .I  never saw nearly so many before. It is a very agreeable surprise."); June 25, 1854 ("Shad-berry ripe.") 

The Rosa lucida . . . have stouter hooked prickles than the R. Carolina. See June 21, 1852 (" I observe a rose (called by some moss rose), with a bristly reddish stem; another, with a smooth red stem and but a few prickles; another, with many prickles and bristles."); July 24, 1853 ("The late rose, -- R. Carolina, swamp rose,-- I think has larger and longer leaves; at any rate they are duller above (light beneath). and the bushes higher.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose
Upland haying begun. See June 21, 1853 ("The farmers have commenced haying. With this the summer culminates.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

July 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 20

Rosa lucida –

stouter hooked prickles than the

R. Carolina.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Crickets are eating the Wild Strawberries

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540620