I would make a chart of our life,
know why just this circle of creatures
completes the world.
Henry Thoreau,
April 18, 1852
Yellow leaves of the
white willow thickly strew the
bottom of my boat.
April 17. Willows (Salix alba) probably (did not four or five days ago) April 17, 1860
April 24. The Salix alba begins to leaf. April 24, 1855
April 27. The Salix alba begins to leaf, and the catkins are three quarters of an inch long. April 27, 1854
April 29. For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape. April 29, 1855
April 30. Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two. April 30, 1859
May 2. Summer yellowbird on the opening Salix alba.? May 2, 1853
May 2. Salix alba apparently yesterday. May 2, 1860
May 3. The willows (Salix alba) where I keep my boat resound with the hum of bees and other insects. May 3, 1853
May 4. Notice the white willows on Hubbard's Bridge causeway, - quite a mass of green when seen aslant from this side, and have been two or three days, but as yet no bloom there nor hum of bees. Also their freshest osiers are very bright, yet I think most of it is due to the height at which the sun runs. They are priests of the sun, report his brightness, — heliometers . We do not realize how much more light there is in the day than in winter. If the ground should be covered with snow, the reflection would dazzle us and blister our faces This willow begins to be green before the aspens, say five or six days ago. May 4, 1859
May 6. 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. May 6, 1853
May 9. Our moods vary from week to week, with the winds and the temperature and the revolution of the seasons. It is impossible to remember a week ago. A river of Lethe flows with many windings the year through, separating one season from another.I smell the blossoms of the willows, the row of Salix alba on Swamp Bridge Brook, a quarter of a mile to windward, the wind being strong. May 9, 1852
May 10. For some days the Salix alba have shown their yellow wreaths here and there, suggesting the coming of the yellowbird, and now they are alive with them. May 10, 1858
May 10. Salix alba flower in prime and resounding with the hum of bees on it. The sweet fragrance fills the air for a long distance. How much the planting of this willow adds to the greenness and cheerfulness of our landscape at this season! May 10, 1860
May 11. The Salix alba by my boat is out and beaten by the rain; perhaps three or four days in some places, but not on the 6th. May 11, 1856
May 12. I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. They now adorn the causeways with their yellow blossoms and resound with the hum of bumblebees. May 12, 1855
May 14. The Salix sericea, large and small, and the petiolaris or loose-catkinned (so far as I know their staminate flowers) are now out of bloom.The rostrata not quite done. Some of its catkins now three and a half inches long. The alba not quite done. S. pedicellaris by railroad about done, and the Torreyana done. May 14, 1858
June 9. Standing on the Mill-Dam this afternoon, after one of these showers, I noticed the air full of some kind of down, which at first I mistook for feathers or lint from some chamber, then for light-winged insects, for it rose and fell just like the flights of may-flies. At length I traced it to the white willow behind the blacksmith's shop, which apparently the rain has released. The wind was driving it up between and over the buildings, and it was flying all along the Mill-Dam in a stream, filling the air like a flight of bright-colored gauze-winged insects, as high as the roofs. It was the willow down with a minute blackish seed in the midst or beneath. In the moist air, seen against the still dark clouds, like large white dancing motes, from time to time falling to earth. The rain had apparently loosened them, and the slight breeze succeeding set them a-going. June 9, 1860
June 11. The fertile Salix alba is conspicuous now at a distance, in fruit, being yellowish and drooping. June 11, 1858
June 15. Black willow is now gone to seed, and its down covers the water, white amid the weeds. June 15, 1854
June 15. Notice the down of the white willow near the bridge , twenty rods off, whitening Sassafras Shore for two or three rods like a dense white foam. It is all full of lit tle seeds not sprouted , is as dense as fur, and has first blown fifteen rods overland. This is a late willow to ripen, but the black willow shows no down yet, as I notice. It is very conspicuously white along the shore a foot or two wide, – a dense downy coat or fleece on the water. Has blown northeast. June 15, 1860
October 4 The yellow leaves of the white willow thickly strew the bottom of my boat. These willows shed their oldest leaves first, even like pines. The recent and green ones are seen mottling a yellowish ground, especially in the willow; and, in the case of the willow, at least, these green ones wither and fall for the most part without turning yellow at all. October 4, 1857 October 8. Found my boat yesterday full of willow leaves after the rain. October 8, 1855
October 9. As I return over the bridge, I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring. October 9, 1851
October 12. The willows on the Turnpike resound with the hum of bees, almost as in spring! I see apparently yellow wasps, hornets, and small bees attracted by something on their twigs. October 12, 1859
October 13. Some white willows are very fresh and green yet. October 13, 1857
October 14. The willows have the bleached look of November,
October 14, 1860
October 16.Willows generally turn yellow, even to the little sage willow, the smallest of all our species, but a foot or two high, though the Salix alba hardly attains to more than a sheeny polish. October 16, 1858
October 17. The Salix lucida lower leaves are all fallen (the rest are yellow). So, too, it is the lower leaves of the willows generally which have fallen first. October 17, 1858
October 25. The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry. The dead wool-grass, etc., characterizes the shore. The meadows look sere and straw-colored. October 25, 1855
Now, especially, we notice not only the silvery leaves of the Salix alba but the silvery sheen of pine-needles; i. e., when its old leaves have fallen and trees generally are mostly bare, in the cool Novemberish air and light we observe and enjoy the trembling shimmer and gleam of the pine-needles. October 25, 1858
October 31. I go over the Hubbard Bridge causeway. The young Salix alba osiers are just bare, or nearly so, and the yellow twigs accordingly begin to show . . . The Salix alba, too, looks yellower at a distance now. October 31, 1858
"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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