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
At Holden's Spruce Swamp.
The water is frozen in
the pitcher-plant leaf
(Sarracenia purpurea)
The petals of the sidesaddle-flower,
fully expanded, hang down. How complex it is,
what with flowers and leaves! It is a wholesome
and interesting plant to me,
the leaf especially
This swamp contains beautiful specimens of the sidesaddle-flower
(Sarracenia purpurea), better called pitcher-plant. . . .
No plants are more richly painted and streaked
than the inside of the broad lips of these.
Old Josselyn called this "Hollow-leaved Lavender."
No other plant, methinks, that we have is
so remarkable and singular.
May 28. The sidesaddle-flower conspicuous, but no pollen yet. May 28, 1853
May 30. The sidesaddle-flowers . . . are just beginning to blossom. The last are quite showy flowers when the wind turns them so as to show their undersides. May 30, 1852
June 8. Sidesaddle, apparently to-morrow (?) June 8, 1854
June 8. The sidesaddle-flower is out, — how long? June 8, 1858
June 9. Sidesaddle, apparently a day or two; petals hang down. June 9, 1855
June 10. Sidesaddle generally out; petals hang down, apparently a day or two. It is a conspicuous flower. June 10, 1854
June 12. The petals of the sidesaddle-flower, fully expanded, hang down. How complex it is, what with flowers and leaves! It is a wholesome and interesting plant to me, the leaf especially.June 12, 1852
June 12. The sidesaddle-flowers are partly turned up now and make a great show, with their broad red petals flapping like saddle ears (?) June 12, 1853
June 12. Sidesaddle flower numerously out now. June 12, 1856
August 18. We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty.August 18, 1854
August 21. In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it. August 21, 1854
August 22. I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew. It is wonderful that in all this drought it has not evaporated. August 22, 1854
September 11. 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! September 11, 1851
September 27. I never found a pitcher-plant without an insect in it. The bristles about the nose of the pitcher all point inward, and insects which enter or fall in appear for this reason unable to get out again. It is some obstacle which our senses cannot appreciate. Pitcher-plants more obvious now. September 27, 1851
September 28. This swamp [the spruce swamp in Conant's Grove] contains beautiful specimens of the sidesaddle-flower (Sarracenia purpurea), better called pitcher-plant. They ray out around the dry scape and flower, which still remain, resting on rich uneven beds of a coarse reddish moss, through which the small flowered andromeda puts up, presenting altogether a most rich and luxuriant appearance to the eye. Though the moss is comparatively dry, I cannot walk without upsetting the numerous pitchers, which are now full of water, and so wetting my feet. I once accidentally sat down on such a bed of pitcher-plants, and found an uncommonly wet seat where I expected a dry one. These leaves are of various colors from plain green to a rich striped yellow or deep red. No plants are more richly painted and streaked than the inside of the broad lips of these. Old Josselyn called this "Hollow-leaved Lavender." No other plant, methinks, that we have is so remarkable and singular. September 28, 1851
November 9. The pitcher plant, though a little frost-bitten and often cut off by the mower, now stands full of water in the meadows. I never found one that had not an insect in it. November 9, 1850
November 11. In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red. November 11, 1858
November 15 The water is frozen solid in the leaves of the pitcher plants. November 15, 1857
November 16. At Holden's Spruce Swamp. The water is frozen in the pitcher-plant leaf November 16, 1852
December 31. Even the sidesaddle-flower, where it shows its head above the snow, now gray and leathery, dry, is covered beneath its cap with pretty large close-set light-brown seeds. December 31, 1859
February 11. The water in the pitcher-plant leaves is frozen, but I see none burst. They are very tightly filled and smooth, apparently stretched. February 11, 1858
February 13. Cafferty's Swamp. . . How often vegetation is either yellow or red! as the buds of the swamp-pink, the leaves of the pitcher-plant, etc., etc., and to-day I notice yellow-green recent shoots of high blueberry. February 13, 1858
See also
Mass Audubon, Carnivorous Plants Found in Massachusetts
Kent McFarland, Pitcher Plant’s Web of Life
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant
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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