For the first time I perceive this spring
that the year is a circle.
I would make a chart of our life,
know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.
Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852
(Linnaea borealis)
Thoreau knew Linnaea from three sites in Concord: the Loring’s Wood west of Loring’s Pond [Linnaea Borealis Wood, Linnaea Hill(s), Linnaea Wood-lot] Stow’s Wood by Deep Cut in the Walden Woods, and in the Holden wood-lot near Nut Meadow Brook ~ Ray Angelo, Vascular Flora of Concord
May 30. I find the linnæa, and budded, in Stow's Wood by Deep Cut. May 30, 1854
June 1. I find the Linnaea borealis growing near the end of the ridge in this lot toward the meadow, near a large white pine stump recently cut. June 1, 1855
June 3. To Annursnack. By way of the linnæa, which I find is not yet out. That thick pine wood is full of birds. June 3, 1853
June 4. The Linnaea borealis has grown an inch. But are not the flowers winter-killed? I see dead and blackened flower-buds. Perhaps it should have opened before. June 4, 1855
June 6. 4.30 A. M. To Linnæa Woods. Famous place for tanagers . . .The linnæa just out. June 6, 1853
June 6. I hear of linnaea out in a pitcher and probably (?) in woods. June 6, 1858
June 7. Linnæa abundantly out some days; say 3d or 4th. June 7, 1854
June 9. Gathered the Linnæa borealis. June 9, 1851
June 10. I find some linnæa well out, after all, within a rod of the top of the hill, apparently two or three days. If it flowered more abundantly, probably it would be earlier June 10, 1856
June 19. I cannot find the linnæa in Loring's; perhaps because the woods are cut down; perhaps I am too late. June 19, 1852
June 24. The Linnæa borealis just going out of blossom. I should have found it long ago. Its leaves densely cover the ground. June 24, 1852
July 15. At about one mile or three quarters below the summit [of Lafayette], just above the limit of trees, we came to a little pond. . . In the dwarf fir thickets above and below this pond, I saw the most beautiful linnæas that I ever saw. They grew quite densely, full of rose-purple flowers, — deeper reddish purple than ours, which are pale, — perhaps nodding over the brink of a spring, altogether the fairest mountain flowers I saw, lining the side of the narrow horse track through the fir scrub. As you walk, you overlook the top of this thicket on each side. July 15, 1858
See also
On the Trail of Twinflower (Linnaeus adopted the twinflower as his personal symbol.)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Linnaea borealis (Twinflower)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 © 2009-2025
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