P. M. — To Walden.
Elder-berries, now looking purple, are weighing down the bushes along fences by their abundance.
White goldenrod, not long commonly.
Decodon getting stale at Second Andromeda Pond. Often the end has rooted itself, and the whole forms a loop four feet long and twenty or more inches high in the middle, with numerous branches, making it rather troublesome to wade through. Where the stems bend down and rest on the water, they swell to several times their usual size and acquire that thick, soft bark, and put forth numerous roots; not the extreme point, but a space just short of it, while that starts up again.
On R. W. E.'s hillside by railroad, burnt over by the engine in the spring, the erechthites has shot up abundantly, very tall and straight, some six or seven feet high.
Those singular crowded and wrinkled dry galls, red and cream-color mingled, on white oak shrubs, with their grubs in them.
On the west side of Emerson's Cliff, I notice many Gerardia pedicularia out. A bee is hovering about one bush. The flowers are not yet open, and if they were, perhaps he could not enter. He proceeds at once, head downwards, to the base of the tube, extracts the sweet there, and departs. Examining, I find that every flower has a small hole pierced through the tube, commonly through calyx and all, opposite the nectary. This does not hinder its opening.
The Rape of the Flower! The bee knew where the sweet lay, and was unscrupulous in his mode of obtaining it. A certain violence tolerated by nature.
Now for high blackberries, though the low are gone. At the Lincoln bound hollow, Walden, there is a dense bed of the Rubus hispidus, matting the ground seven or eight inches deep, and full of the small black fruit, now in its prime. It is especially abundant where the vines lie over a stump. Has a peculiar, hardly agreeable acid.
On this Lespedeza Stuvei, a green locust an inch and three quarters long.
The scent of decaying fungi in woods is quite offensive now in many places, like carrion even. I see many red ones eaten more or less in the paths, nibbled out on the edges.
7 p. m. — The river has risen four inches since last night and now is one inch above the wall, and there is a little current there. Probably, then, the Assabet has begun to fall, — if this has not risen higher than that.
J. Farmer says that he found that the gummed twig of a chimney swallow's nest, though it burned when held in a flame, went out immediately when taken out of it, and he thinks it owing to a peculiarity in the gum, rendering the twig partly fire-proof, so that they cannot be ignited by the sparks in a chimney. I suggested that these swallows had originally built in hollow trees, but it would be interesting to ascertain whether they constructed their nests in the same way and of the same material then.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 23, 1856
I see a bed of Antennaria margaritacea, now in its prime, by the railroad, and very handsome. See August 23, 1858 (“I see dense patches of the pearly everlasting, maintaining their ground in the midst of dense green sweet-fern, a striking contrast of snow-white and green.”); See alsso July 17, 1852 ("The Antennaria margaritacea, pearly everlasting, is out")
Elder-berries, now looking purple, are weighing down the bushes See August 22, 1852 ("The elder bushes are weighed down with fruit partially turned, and are still in bloom at the extremities of their twigs."); August 29, 1854 ("The cymes of elder-berries, black with fruit, are now conspicuous."); August 29, 1859 ("Elder-berry clusters swell and become heavy and therefore droop, bending the bushes down, just in proportion as they ripen. Hence you see the green cymes perfectly erect, the half-ripe drooping, and the perfectly ripe hanging straight down on the same bush.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elder-berries
White goldenrod, not long commonly. See August 12, 1852 ("Solidago bicolor, white goldenrod, apparently in good season"); August 21, 1856 ("The bicolor, just begun in some places. "); September 21, 1856 ("[On top of Cliff, behind the big stump] is a great place for white goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees."); October 11, 1856 ("The white goldenrod is still common here, and covered with bees.")
Gerardia pedicularia out. A bee is hovering about one bush. See August 12, 1856 ("Gerardia pedicularia, how long?"); August 17, 1852 ("Bushy gerardia, almost ready. "); August 24, 1858 ("Climbing the hill at the bend, I find Gerardia Pedicularia, apparently several days, or how long?")
Now for high blackberries. See August 23, 1858 ("High blackberries now in their prime, their great racemes of shining black fruit, mixed with red and green, bent over amid the sweet-fern and sumach on sunny hill sides,"); See also August 17, 1853 ("The high blackberries are now in their prime; the richest berry we have."); August 22, 1852 ("Is not the high blackberry our finest berry?")
August 24, 1852 (" Surely the high blackberry is the finest berry, – not by dusty roadsides, but when now the season is rather late, and you find them in some rocky sprout-land, far from any road, fully ripe, having escaped the pickers, weighing down their stems and half hidden amid the green leaves of other plants, black and shiny, ready to drop, with a spirited juice. Who will pretend that, plucked and eaten there, they are the same with those offered at the tea table? ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries
A green locust an inch and three quarters long. See August 21, 1853 ("Saw one of those light-green locusts about three quarters of an inch long on a currant leaf in the garden. "); August 27, 1860 ("See one of the shrilling green alder locusts on the under side of a grape leaf. Its body is about three quarters of an inch or less in length; antennae and all, two inches. “); September 6, 1857 ("I see one of those peculiarly green locusts with long and slender legs on a grass stem, which are often concealed by their color.")
The scent of decaying fungi in woods is quite offensive now. See August 14, 1853 ("There are countless great fungi of various forms and colors, the produce of the warm rains and muggy weather . . . and for most of my walk the air is tainted with a musty, carrion like odor, in some places very offensive"); August 16, 1853 ("Yesterday also in the Marlborough woods, perceived everywhere that offensive mustiness of decaying fungi."); September 10, 1854 ("Last year, for the last three weeks of August, the woods were filled with the strong musty scent of decaying fungi, but this year I have seen very few fungi and have not noticed that odor at all.")
The gummed twig of a chimney swallow's nest. See July 29, 1856 ("Pratt gave me a chimney swallow's nest . . . firmly fastened together by a very conspicuous whitish semi-transparent glue."
August 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 23
A wheel of flowers
pearly masses covered with
bees and butterflies.
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
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560823
