I would make a chart of our life,
know why just this circle of creatures
completes the world.
Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852
It takes several years' faithful search
to learn where to look
for the earliest flowers.
February 28, 1857
An arctic voyage
was this in which I find two
cowslips in full blooom.
April 8, 1856
March 5. The cowslip there [Well Meadow] is very prominently flower-budded, lifting its yellow flower-buds above water in one place. The leaves are quite inconspicuous when they first come up, being rolled up tightly. March 5, 1859
March 14. The cowslip in pitcher has fairly blossomed to-day. March 14, 1859
March 24. It is too cold to think of those signs of spring which I find recorded under this date last year. The earliest signs of spring in vegetation noticed thus far are the maple sap, the willow catkins, grass on south banks, and perhaps cowslip in sheltered places. March 24, 1855
March 26. The buds of the cowslip are very yellow, and the plant is not observed a rod off, it lies so low and close to the surface of the water in the meadow. It may bloom and wither there several times before villagers discover or suspect it. March 26, 1857
March 27. Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward, showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is sheltered from the winds. The already expanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth, it is the most forward herb I have seen. March 27, 1855
April 2. In the warm recess at the head of Well Meadow, which makes up on the northeast side of Fair Haven, I find many evidences of spring . . . The cowslip appears to be coming next to it [the skunk cabbage]. Its buds are quite yellowish and half an inch, almost, in diameter. April 2, 1856
April 3. The white maple buds on the south side of some trees have slightly opened, so that I can peep into their cavities and detect the stamens. They will probably come next to the skunk-cabbage this year, if the cowslip does not. April 3, 1856
April 8. There, in that slow, muddy brook near the head of Well Meadow, within a few rods of its source, where it winds amid the alders, which shelter the plants some what, while they are open enough now to admit the sun, I find two cowslips in full bloom, shedding pollen; and they may have opened two or three days ago; for I saw many conspicuous buds here on the 2d which now I do not see. Have they not been eaten off? Do we not often lose the earliest flowers thus? A little more, or if the river had risen as high as frequently, they would have been submerged. What an arctic voyage was this in which I find cowslips, the pond and river still frozen over for the most part as far down as Cardinal Shore! April 8, 1856
April 9. The cowslips are well out, – the first conspicuous herbaceous flower, for the cabbage is concealed in its spathe. April 9, 1853
April 11. I might have said on the 8th: Behold that little hemisphere of green in the black and sluggish brook, amid the open alders, sheltered under a russet tussock. It is the cowslips’ forward green. Look narrowly, explore the warmest nooks; here are buds larger yet, showing more yellow, and yonder see two full-blown yellow disks, close to the water’s edge. Methinks they dip into it when the frosty nights come. April 11, 1856
April 12. Cowslip will apparently open in two days at Hubbard’s Close. April 12, 1855
April 13. Many cowslip buds show a little yellow, but they will not open there [Second Division] for two or three days. The road is paved with solid ice there. April 13, 1855
April 13. Still no cowslips nor saxifrage. April 13, 1856
April 29. At the Second Division Brook the cowslip is in blossom. April 29, 1852
May 4. The cowslip's is a vigorous growth and makes at present the most show of any flower. Leaf, stem, bud, and flower are all very handsome in their place and season. It has no scent, but speaks wholly to the eye. The petals are covered at base with a transparent, dewy (dew-like), apparently golden nectar. Better for yellows than for greens. May 4, 1852
See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Earliest Flower
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cowslip in Early Spring
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 © 2009-2026
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