Red lady’s-slippers over the red pine leaves on the forest floor,

June 5. 
Thursday. P. M. — To Indian Ditch. 

Achillea Millefolium. Black cherry, apparently yesterday. 

The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine, and shows white rump (?), etc., unlike kingbird. 

Return by J. Hosmer Desert. 

Everywhere now in dry pitch pine woods stand the red lady’s-slippers over the red pine leaves on the forest floor, rejoicing in June, with their two broad curving green leaves, —some even in swamps. Uphold their rich, striped red, drooping sack. 

This while rye begins to wave richly in the fields. 

A brown thrasher’s nest with four eggs considerably developed, under a small white pine on the old north edge of the desert, lined with root-fibres. The bird utters its peculiar tchuck near by. 

Pitch pine out, the first noticed on low land, maybe a day or two. Froth on pitch pine. 

A blue jay’s nest on a white pine, eight feet from ground, next to the stem, of twigs lined with root-fibres; three fresh eggs, dark dull greenish, with dusky spots equally distributed all over, in Hosmer (?) pines twenty seven paces east of wall and fifty-seven from factory road by wall. Jay screams as usual. Sat till I got within ten feet at first.

A cuckoo’s nest with three light bluish-green eggs partly developed, short with rounded ends, nearly of a size; in the thicket up railroad this side high wood, in a black cherry that had been lopped three feet from ground, amid the thick sprouts; a nest of nearly average depth (?), of twigs lined with green leaves, pine needles, etc., and edged with some dry, branchy weeds. The bird stole off silently at first. Five rods south of railroad. 

I must call that cerastium of May 22d C. nutans (?), at least for the present, though I do not see grooves in stem. Oakes, in his catalogue in Thompson’s “History of Vermont,” says it is not found in New England out of that State. The pods of the common one also turn upward. It is about four flowered; no petals; pods, which have formed in tumbler, more than twice but not thrice as long as calyx, bent down nearly at right angles with peduncles and then curving upward. The common cerastium is in tufts, spreading, a darker green and much larger, hairy but not glutinous, pods but little longer than calyx (as yet) and upright.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 5, 1856

The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine, . . . See May 15, 1855 ("I hear from the top of a pitch pine in the swamp that loud, clear, familiar whistle . . . I saw it dart out once, catch an insect, and return to its perch muscicapa-like. As near as I could see it had a white throat . ”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Olive-sided flycatcher or pe-pe

Everywhere now in dry pitch pine woods stand the red lady’s-slippers. . . . See  June 5, 1850 ("When the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons.") See also note to May 30, 1856 (“The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th.”)

Froth on pitch pine. See June 4, 1854 ("I now notice froth on the pitch and white pines.”); June 15, 1851("A white froth drips from the pitch pines, just at the base of the new shoots. It has no taste.”).

A blue jay’s nest on a white pine, . . . See June 8, 1855 ("A jay’s nest with three young half fledged in a white pine, six feet high ,. . . made of coarse sticks.”); June 10, 1859 ("a blue jay's nest about four feet up a birch, quite exposed beneath the leafy branches. “) .  

I must call that cerastium of May 22d C. nutans . . . See May 31, 1856 ("That little cerastium on the rock at the Island, noticed the 22d, . . .seems to be the C. nutans (?), from size, erectness, and form of pods and leaves.”)

A brown thrasher’s nest with four eggs considerably developed, under a small white pine See
June 6, 1857 ("A brown thrasher's nest, with two eggs, on ground, near lower lentago wall and toward Bittern Cliff. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher

The Lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side.

May 30. 
P. M. — To Linnaea Wood-lot. 

The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th. 

That desert, small as it now is (for it is partly reclaimed by using pine boughs as a salve), is scored with circles (like that of Provincetown) made by the dry Polygonum articulatum blown about. It is but a lesser Sahara, and I cannot see it without being reminded that, in some parts of the globe, sand prevails like an ocean. 

What are those black masses of fibrous roots mixed with smaller dark-gray, cone-like tubers, on the sand?

Return 'via Clamshell. Yellow clover abundantly out, though the heads are small yet. Are they quite open? 

Comandra umbellata, apparently a day or two. 

Frank Harding caught five good-sized chivin this cold and windy day from the new stone bridge. The biggest one was quite red or coppery; the others but slightly, except the head. Is it a peculiarity of age?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1856

The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side . . . See May 30, 1858 ("Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d; how long?"); May 30, 1855 ("Ladies’ slipper, apparently”); May 27, 1852 ("Ladies'-slippers out. They perfume the air.”); May 26, 1857 (“A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. ”); May 20, 1852 ("A lady's-slipper well budded”); May19, 1860 (“At the Ministerial Swamp I see a white lady's-slipper almost out, fully grown, with red ones.”); May 18, 1851 ("Lady's-slipper almost fully blossomed”).

Polygonum articulate:   Coastal jointed knotweed - found on sand dunes, pine barrens, or disturbed areas with sandy soils. GoBotany

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

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 © 2009-2021