Nightshade berries begin to ripen

July 28. 

7 A. M. – To Azalea Brook.

The mikania is hardly out yet; like the eupatoriums, shows its color long before it opens.

The vernonia not quite yet.

The lilies, though a little less numerous, appear freer from insects than at first. Their pads not so much eaten as those of the nuphar.

The pickerel-weed has passed its prime.

The pettymorel at the brook not out, though that by the Corner Spring has berries.

P. M. – To Clematis Brook via Lee's with Mr. Conway.

Tells me of a kind of apple tree with very thick leaves near the houses in Virginia called the tea-tree, under which they take tea, even through an ordinary shower, it sheds the rain so well, and there the table constantly stands in warm weather.

The Gerardia flava in the hickory grove behind Lee's Cliff, some days. Answers apparently in every respect to the above, yet its lower leaves are like narrow white oak leaves. Have I seen the G. quercifolia? 

Is that the Cicuta bulbifera just out at Clematis Brook, with decompound leaves and linear leafets fringe toothed?? 

That low hieracium, hairy, especially the lower part, with several hairy, obovate or oblanceolate leaves, remotely, very slightly, toothed, and glandular hairs on peduncles and calyx, a few heads, some days at least. Vide herbarium.

Saw lower leaves of the white vervain turned a reddish lake or claret.

Nightshade berries begin to ripen, — to be red.

Is that rather coarse flower about Mrs. Brooks's house (escaped from cultivation), called Bouncing Bet, and which has been open ten days or more, Saponaria Vaccaria, — cow-herb?

The mullein pink is also escaped from gardens thereabouts.

Aster linariifolius.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 28, 1853

The Gerardia flava in the hickory grove behind Lee's Cliff .See July 28, 1856 (Gerardia flava, apparently several days.) See also July 22, 1854 ("Gerardia flava, apparently two or three days, Lupine Hillside up railroad, near fence") [Gerardia flava now know as Aureolaria flava (smooth false foxglove)]

That low hieracium, hairy, especially the lower part, with several hairy, obovate or oblanceolate leaves. some days at least.  See July 28, 1852 ("What is that slender hieracium or aster-like plant in woods on Corner road with lanceolate, coarsely feather-veined leaves, sessile and remotely toothed; minute, clustered, imbricate buds (?) or flowers and buds? Panicled hieracium?") See also  July 31, 1856 ("Hieracium paniculatum by Gerardia quercifolia path in woods under Cliffs, two or three days."); August 21, 1851 ("Hieracium paniculatum, a very delicate and slender hawkweed. I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Hawkweeds (hieracium)

Saw lower leaves of the white vervain turned a reddish lake or claret. See August 6, 1853 ("lower leaves of some catnip and a white vervain have turned.")

Nightshade berries begin to ripen, — to be red. See August 5, 1856 ("Nightshade berries, how long?"); August 20, 1851 ("Where the brook issues from the pond, the nightshade grows profusely, spreading five or six feet each way, with its red berries now ripe."); September 26, 1859 ("I do not know any clusters more graceful and beautiful than these drooping cymes of scarlet or translucent cherry-colored elliptical berries"); October 15, 1859 ("Solanum Dulcamara berries linger over water but mostly are shrivelled")

Aster linariifolius. See July 29, 1852 ("That common rigid narrow-leaved faint-purplish aster in dry woods by shrub oak path, Aster linariifolius of Bigelow, but it is not savory leaved. I do not find it in Gray. "); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Savory-leaved aster

July 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 28

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

So many men in the fields haying now. Yellow butterflies in the road.

July 22.

P. M. – To Annursnack.

The Chenopodium hybridum (?); at least its leaves are dark-green, rhomboidal, and heart-shaped.

The orchis and spikenard at Azalea Brook are not yet open.

The early roses are now about done, — the sweet briar quite, I think.

I see sometimes houstonias still.

The elodea out.

Boehmeria not yet.

On one account, at least, I enjoy walking in the fields less at this season than at any other; there are so many men in the fields haying now.

Observed, on the wild basil on Annursnack, small reddish butterflies which looked like a part of the plant. It has a singularly soft, velvety leaf.

Smooth sumach berries crimson there.

There is a kind of low blackberry which does not bear large fruit but very dense clusters, by wall-sides, shaded by the vine or other plants often, of clammy and strong-tasted berries.

Yellow butterflies in the road.

I find the Campanula Americana of the West naturalized in our garden.

Also a silene (?) without visibly viscid stem and with swollen joints; apparently the snapdragon catchfly otherwise. Leaves opposite, sessile, lanceolate.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 22, 1853

There are so many men in the fields haying now. Compare July 22, 1854 ("The hottest night, — the last. It was almost impossible to pursue any work out-of- doors yesterday. There were but few men to be seen out.") 

On the wild basil . . . small reddish butterflies which looked like a part of the plant. See July 22, 1852 ("Tansy is now conspicuous by the roadsides, covered with small red butterflies"): See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly

The orchis and spikenard at Azalea Brook are not yet open. See July 12, 1853 ("Spikenard, not quite yet.The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook will soon flower.") The locally rare Spikenard (Aralia racemosa) that Thoreau saw near Azalea brook still persisted in 2007.~ Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts(and in Lincoln, Massachusetts) & Other Botanical Sites in Concord compiled by Ray Angelo./ See also May 31, 1853 ("I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora")

Yellow butterflies in the road. See July 14, 1852 ("See to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies in compact assembly in the road”); July 16, 1851 ("I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed");   July 19, 1856 ("Fleets of yellow butterflies on road."); July 26, 1854 ("Today I see in various parts of the town the yellow butterflies in fleets in the road, on bare damp sand, twenty or more collected within a diameter of five or six inches in many places."); September 3, 1854 ("Even at this season I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Butterflies

July 22. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 22

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