A black snake at home in the trees.

May 28. 

Saturday. P. M. — To Cliffs. 

Some Salix rostrata seed begins to fly. 

Low blackberry in bloom on railroad bank. 

Also S. Torreyana seed, just begun to fly. S. pedicellaris long out of bloom there. 

At the extreme east side of Trillium Wood, come upon a black snake, which at first keeps still prudently, thinking I may not see him, — in the grass in open land, — then glides to the edge of the wood and darts swiftly up into the top of some slender shrubs there — Viburnum dentatum and alder — and lies stretched out, eying me, in horizontal loops eight feet high. The biggest shrub was not over one inch thick at the ground. At first I thought its neck was its chief member, — as if it drew itself up by it, — but again I thought that it rather (when I watched it ascending) extended its neck and a great part of its body upward, while the lower extremity was more or less coiled and rigid on the twigs from a point d'appui. Thus it lifted itself quickly to higher forks. When it moved along more horizontally, it extended its neck far, and placed it successively between the slender forks. 

This snake, some four feet long, rested there at length twelve feet high, on twigs, not one so big as a pipe-stem, in the top of a shad-bush; yet this one's tail was broken off where a third of an inch thick, and it could not cling with that. It was quick as thought in its motions there, and perfectly at home in the trees, so far was it from making the impression of a snake in an awkward position. 

Cinnamon fern pollen [sic]. 

Lady's-slipper pollen. These grow under pines even in swamps, as at Ledum Swamp. 

The lint from leaves sticks to your clothes now. 

Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. 

Methinks every tree and shrub is started, or more, now, but the Vaccinium dumosum, which has not burst.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1859

Some Salix rostrata seed begins to fly. See June 6, 1856 ("That willow, male and female, opposite to Trillium Woods on the railroad, I find to be the Salix rostrata, or long-beaked willow, one of the ochre-flowered.")

This snake, some four feet long, perfectly at home in the trees. See May 16, 2018 ("It surprised me very much to see it cross from tree to tree exactly like a squirrel, where there appeared little or no support for such a body."); May 30, 1855 ("See a small black snake run along securely through thin bushes (alders and willows) three or four feet from the ground, passing intervals of two feet easily,—very readily and gracefully, —ascending or descending")

The Vaccinium dumosum. See  August 30, 1856 (“I noticed also a few small peculiar-looking huckleberries hanging on bushes amid the sphagnum, and, tasting, perceived that they were hispid, a new kind to me. Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella . . .. Has a small black hairy or hispid berry, shining but insipid and inedible, with a tough, hairy skin left in the mouth.”); July 2, 1857 (“The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, not yet quite in prime. . . . not to be mistaken for the edible huckleberry or blueberry blossom.”); August 8, 1858 (“the Gaylussacia dumosa var. hiriella . . . the only inedible species of  Vaccinieoe that I know in this town”)

May 28. SeeA Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, May 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 ©  2009-2021

The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood.

May 30. 

Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d; how long? 

I saw the Nuphar advena above water and yellow in Shrewsbury the 23d. 

P. M.–To hen-harrier's nest and to Ledum Swamp.

Edward Emerson shows me the nest which he and another discovered. It is in the midst of the low wood, sometimes inundated, just southwest of Hubbard's Bath, the island of wood in the meadow.

The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one of the flicker. 

The nest is in a more bushy or open place in this low wood, and consists of a large mass of sedge and stubble with a very few small twigs, as it were accidentally intermingled. It is about twenty inches in diameter and remarkably flat, the slight depression in the middle not exceeding three quarters of an inch. The whole opening amid the low bushes is not more than two feet in diameter. The thickness of it raises the surface about four inches above the ground. The inner and upper part is uniformly rather fine and pale-brown sedge. 

There are two dirty, or rather dirtied, white eggs left (of four that were), one of them one and seven tenths inches long, and not “spherical,” as Brewer says, but broad in proportion to length. [Another is one and seven eighths inches long by one and a half inches. Vide the last (which was addled).]

Ledum, one flower out, but perhaps if Pratt had not plucked some last Sunday it might have bloomed here yesterday? It is decidedly leafing also.

Andromeda Polifolia by the ditch well out, how long?

I perceive the turpentine scent of the ledum in the air as I walk through it. 

As I stand by the riverside some time after sundown, I see a light white mist rising here and there in wisps from the meadow, far and near, — less visible within a foot of me, — to the height of three or four or ten feet. It does not rise generally and evenly from every part of the meadow, but, as yet, over certain spots only, where there is some warm breath of the meadow turned into cloud.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal  May 30, 1858

Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d. See note to May 30, 1856 ("The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th.")

The nest is in the midst of the low wood, sometimes inundated, just southwest of Hubbard's Bath, the island of wood in the meadow. The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one of the flicker. See May 14, 1857 ("See a pair of marsh hawks, the smaller and lighter-colored male, with black tips to wings, and the large brown female, sailing low over J. Hosmer's sprout-land and screaming, apparently looking for frogs or the like. Or have they not a nest near? They hover very near me.");  See May 20, 1856 (“Two marsh hawks, male and female, flew about me a long time, screaming, the female largest, with ragged wing ,. . . they have, no doubt, a nest thereabouts. ”)

Ledum, one flower out, but perhaps if Pratt had not plucked some last Sunday it might have bloomed here yesterday. See February 4, 1858 ("Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole")

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

At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air.

May 26. 

Pink azalea in garden. 

Mountain-ash a day; also horse-chestnut the same. Beach plum well out, several days at least. 

Wood pewee, and Minott heard a loon go laughing over this morning. 

The vireo days have fairly begun. They are now heard amid the elm-tops. 

Thin coats and straw hats are worn. I have noticed that notional nervous invalids, who report to the community the exact condition of their heads and stomachs every morning, as if they alone were blessed or cursed with these parts; who are old betties and quiddles, if men; who can't eat their break fasts when they are ready, but play with their spoons, and hanker after an ice-cream at irregular hours; who go more than half-way to meet any invalidity, and go to bed to be sick on the slightest occasion, in the middle of the brightest forenoon, — improve the least opportunity to be sick ; — I observe that such are self-indulgent persons, without any regular and absorbing employment. They are nice, discriminating, experienced in all that relates to bodily sensations. They come to you stroking their wens, manipulating their ulcers, and expect you to do the same for them. Their religion and humanity stick. They spend the day manipulating their bodies and doing no work; can never get their nails clean. 

Some of the earliest willows about warm edges of woods are gone to seed and downy. 

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. 

It is very hazy after a sultry morning, but the wind is getting east and cool. 

The oaks are in the gray, or a little more, and the silvery leafets of the deciduous trees invest the woods like a permanent mist. At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air. 

I see the common small reddish butterflies. 

Very interesting now are the red tents of expanding- oak leaves, as you go through sprout-lands, — the crimson velvet of the black oak and the more pinkish white oak. The salmon and pinkish-red canopies or umbrellas of the white oak are particularly interesting. 

The very sudden expansion of the great hickory buds, umbrella-wise. 

Now, at last, all leaves dare unfold, and twigs begin to shoot. 

As I am going down the footpath from Britton's camp to the spring, I start a pair of nighthawks (they had the white on the wing) from amid the dry leaves at the base of a bush, a bunch of sprouts, and away they flitted in zigzag noiseless flight a few rods through the sprout-land, dexterously avoiding the twigs, uttering a faint hollow what, as if made by merely closing the bill, and one alighted flat on a stump. 

On those carpinus trees which have fertile flowers, the sterile are effete and drop off. 

The red choke-berry not in bloom, while the black is, for a day or more at least. 

Roadside near Britton's camp, see a grosbeak, apparently female of the rose-breasted, quite tame, as usual, brown above, with black head and a white streak over the eye, a less distinct one beneath it, two faint bars on wings, dirty-white bill, white breast, dark spotted or streaked, and from time [to time] utters a very sharp chirp of alarm or interrogation as it peers through the twigs at me. 

May 26, 2018

A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. 

At Abel Brooks's (or Black Snake, or Red Cherry, or Rye) Hollow, hear the wood thrush. 

In Thrush Alley, see one of those large ant-hills, recently begun, the grass and moss partly covered with sand over a circle two feet in diameter, with holes two to five inches apart, and the dry sand is dark-spotted with the fresh damp sand about each hole. 

My mother was telling to-night of the sounds which she used to hear summer nights when she was young and lived on the Virginia Road, — the lowing of cows, or cackling of geese, or the beating of a drum as far off as Hildreth's, but above all Joe Merriam whistling to his team, for he was an admirable whistler. 

Says she used to get up at midnight and go and sit on the door-step when all in the house were asleep, and she could hear nothing in the world but the ticking of the clock in the house behind her.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 26, 1857

Pink azalea in garden. See May 26, 1860 ("Our pink azalea”); May 25, 1856 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden."); May 29, 1855("Azalea nudiflora in garden”); May 17, 1854 ("Azalea nudiflora in woods begins to leaf now.");May 31, 1853 ("I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora.”) [Rhododendron periclymenoides , pinxterbloom azalea]

Wood pewee. See note to May 26, 1852 ("I hear the pea-wai, the tender note.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee

It is very hazy after a sultry morning, but the wind is getting east and cool. See May 26, 1855 (“Again a strong cold wind from the north by west, turning up the new and tender pads”); May 26, 1860 (“Overcast, rain-threatening; wind northeast and cool”)

At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air. See May 15, 1860 ("At this season there is thus a mist in the air and a mist on the earth.") May 15, 1854 ("The aspect of oak and other woods at a distance is somewhat like that of a very thick and reddish or yellowish mist about the evergreens."); May 27, 1855 ("How important the dark evergreens now seen through the haze in the distance and contrasting with the gauze-like, as yet thin-clad deciduous trees").

A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. See May 27, 1852 ("Ladies'-slippers out. They perfume the air.”); May 30, 1856 (“The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th”).

May 26. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 26

Yellow lady’s-slipper near the Quarry.

June 18. 

Hale says the tiarella grows here, and showed it me pressed; also Kalmia glauca formerly, hobble-bush still, and yellow lady’s-slipper near the Quarry.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 18, 1856

Hobble-bush (Viburnum lantanoides) See The Outside Story.

July 18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 18

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 © 2009-2020

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

A familiar warbler not recognized for some years.

May 30. 

See bird’s nest on an apple by roadside, seven feet high; one egg. Cherry-bird on a cherry; also pecking at the apple blossoms. 

Buttonwood flowers now effete; fertile flowers were not brown on the 24th, but were the 28th; say, then, about the 26th. 

Lepidium virginicum, roadside bank at Minott’s.

The myrica, bayberry, plucked on the 23d, now first sheds pollen in house, the leaf being but little more expanded on the flowering shoot. Gray says, “ somewhat preceding the flowers.” The catkins about a quarter of an inch long, erect, sterile, oval, on the sides of last year’s twigs. 

P. M. — Up railroad. 

A strong west wind and much haze. Silvery potentilla, four or five days at least. 

In the thick of the wood between railroad and Turnpike, hear the evergreen forest note, and see probably the bird, — black throat, greenish-yellow or yellowish-green head and back, light-slate (?) wings with two white bars. Is it not the black-throated green warbler? 

I find close by a small fresh egg on the forest floor, with a slight perforation, white (with perhaps a tinge of flesh-color (?) when full), and brown spots and black marks at the larger end. In Brewer’s synopsis the egg of the black throat is described as “light flesh-color with purple spots.” But these spots are not purple. I could find no nest. 

Senecio in open meadows, say yesterday. 

See a small black snake run along securely through thin bushes (alders and willows) three or four feet from the ground, passing intervals of two feet easily,—very readily and gracefully, —ascending or descending. 

Cornus Canadensis out, how long? 

Green lice from birches (?) get on my clothes. 

Is it not summer now when the creak of the crickets begins to be general? 

Poison-dogwood has grown three or four inches at ends of last year’s shoots, which are three to six feet from ground. 

Black & Yellow Warbler

or

Magnolia Warbler

(Sylvia maculosa) 

Hear a familiar warbler not recognized for some years, in the thick copse in Dennis’s Swamp, south of railroad; considerably yellowbird-like (the note) — tshe tshe tshar tshar tchit, tchit tit te vet. It has apparently a yellow head, bluish or slaty wings with two white bars, tail even, wings dusky at tips, legs light, bill dark, beneath all bright-yellow, remarkably striped lengthwise with dusky, more or less dark in different specimens. Can it be the S. maculosa, or black and yellow warbler, seen formerly? I did not see the black - —— nor indeed the back at all well. It may have been a female, not described by Wilson. Frequents the tops of trees. 

Ladies’ slipper, apparently.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1855

In the thick of the wood between railroad and Turnpike, hear the evergreen forest note, and see probably the bird  See May 11, 1854 ("Hear the evergreen-forest note"); June 1, 1854 ("Hear my evergreen-forest note, sounding rather raspingly as usual, where there are large oaks and pines mingled. It is very difficult to discover now that the leaves are grown, as it frequents the tops of the trees. But I get a glimpse of its black throat and, I think, yellow head "); May 6, 1855 (“the er er twe, ter ter twe, evergreen-forest note”); May 7, 1856 ("I hear the evergreen-forest note close by; and hear and see many myrtle-birds, at the same time that I hear what I have called the black and white creeper’s note. Have I ever confounded them?”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Black-throated Green Warbler

Can it be the S. maculosa, or black and yellow warbler? See May 22, 1860 ("C. . . . appears , by his account , to have seen the Sylvia maculosa . "); July 25, 1860 ("He has the Sylvia maculosa , shot near his house . Bluish - ash above , I believe , head or crown the same , yellow throat and beneath , with many blackish spots and marks [ ? ] on sides and breast , and white spots on inner vanes of tail - feathers , the tail being blackish .")

Ladies’ slipper, apparently. See note to May 30, 1856 ("The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side.”)

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

The road is white with the apple blossoms fallen off, as with snowflakes.

May 27.

A wet day. The veery sings nevertheless. 

The road is white with the apple blossoms fallen off, as with snowflakes. 

The dogwood is coming out.

Ladies'-slippers out. They perfume the air. 

May 27

Ranunculus recurvatus, hooked crowfoot, by the spring.

I hear but few toads and peepers now. Methinks the tree-toad croaks more this wet weather. The tall crowfoot out. 

The fringed polygala near the Corner Spring is a delicate flower, with very fresh tender green leaves and red-purple blossoms; beautiful from the contrast of its clear red-purple flowers with its clear green leaves.

  Catch a wood frog (Rana sylvatica), the color of a dead leaf. He croaks as I hold him, perfectly frog-like. 

a

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, May 27, 1852

Ladies'-slippers out.  See May 26, 1857 (“A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. ”)

A wood frog  the color of a dead leaf. See June 29, 1852 ("The mud turtle is the color of the mud, the wood frog and the hylodes of the dead leaves, the bullfrogs of the pads, the toad of the earth, the tree-toad of the bark."); May 30, 1854 ("Wood frogs skipping over the dead leaves, whose color they resemble."). Compare September 12, 1857 ("I brought it close to my eye and examined it. It was very beautiful seen thus nearly, not the dull dead-leaf color which I had imagined. . .")

The road is white with

the apple blossoms fallen off

as with snowflakes.

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The road is white with apple blossoms

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

The violets at Conant's Spring

May 20, 2017

May 20.

P. M. – To Corner Spring.

So many birds that I have not attended much to any of late.

A barn swallow accompanied me across the Depot Field, methinks attracted by the insects which I started, though I saw them not, wheeling and tacking incessantly on all sides and repeatedly dashing within a rod of me.  It is an agreeable sight to watch one.

Nothing lives in the air but is in rapid motion.

Now is the season of the leafing of the trees and of planting.

The fields are white with houstonias, as they will soon be yellow with buttercups.

Perchance the beginning of summer may be dated from the fully formed leaves, when dense shade (?) begins. I will see.

High blueberries at length. It is unnecessary to speak of them.

All flowers are beautiful.

The Salix alba is about out of bloom.

Pads begin to appear, though the river is high over the meadows.

A caterpillars' nest on a wild cherry.

Some apple trees in blossom; most are just ready to burst forth, the leaves being half formed.

I find the fever-bush in bloom, but apparently its blossoms are now stale. I must observe it next year. They were fresh perhaps a week ago.

Currants in bloom by Conant's Spring. Are they natives of America?

A lady’s-slipper well budded and now white.

The Viola ovata is of a deep purple blue, is darkest and has most of the red in it; the V. pedata is smooth and pale-blue, delicately tinged with purple reflections; the cucullata-is more decidedly blue, slatyblue, and darkly striated.

The white violets by the spring are rather scarce now.

The red oak leaves are very pretty and finely cut, about an inch and three quarters long. Like most young leaves, they are turned  back around the twig, parasol-like.

The farmers apprehend frosts these nights.

A purplish gnaphalium with three-nerved leaves.

H.  D. Thoreau, Journal, May 20, 1852

Perchance the beginning of summer may be dated from the fully formed leaves. Compare May 17, 1853 ("Does not summer begin after the May storm?”)

A lady's-slipper well budded . . . See May 27, 1852 ("Ladies'-slippers out. They perfume the air.”)


The cucullata is more decidedly blue, slaty-blue, and darkly striated. See May 19, 1858 (“There appears to be quite a variety in the colors of the Viola cucullata. Some dark-blue, if not lilac (?), some with a very dark blue centre and whitish circumference, others dark-blue within and dark without, others all very pale blue.”);  May 16, 1852 (“I observe some very pale blue Viola cuculata in the meadows. ”);  May 31, 1858 (“I saw . . . to-day a white V. cucullata. ”) 

The turning-point between winter and summer is reached.

May 18.

MAY 18, 2013

Sunday.

Lady’s-slipper almost fully blossomed.

The log of a canoe birch on Fair Haven, cut down the last winter, more than a foot in diameter at the stump; one foot in diameter at ten feet from the ground. I observed that all parts of the epidermis exposed to the air and light were white, but the inner surfaces  freshly exposed, were a buff or salmon-color. Sinclair says that in winter it is white throughout. But this was cut before the sap flowed? ? ! Was there any sap in the log? I counted about fifty rings.

The shrub oaks are now blossoming.

The scarlet tanagers are come.

The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers.

The hickory buds are almost leaves.

The landscape has a new life and light infused into it.

The deciduous trees are springing, to countenance the pines, which are evergreen.

It seems to take but one summer day to fetch the summer in. The turning-point between winter and summer is reached.

The birds are in full blast.

There is a peculiar freshness about the landscape; you scent the fragrance of new leaves, of hickory and sassafras, etc. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.

The blooming of the apple trees is becoming general.

I think that I have made out two kinds of poplar, the Populus tremuloides, or American aspen, and the P. grandidentata, or large American aspen , whose young leaves are downy. 

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, May 18, 1851

There is a peculiar freshness about the landscape. Lady's-slipper almost fully blossomed. The scarlet tanagers are come. The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers. The hickory buds are almost leaves. The birds are in full blast. The blooming of the apple trees is becoming general. You scent the fragrance of new leaves.The turning-point between winter and summer is reached. The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green

The turning-point between winter and summer is reached. Compare March 30, 1860 ("[Y]ou seem to be crossing the threshold between winter and summer. As I walk the street I realize that a new season has arrived.”)

The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green. See May 18, 1852 ("This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date. The week when the deciduous trees are generally and conspicuously expanding their leaves.”); May 17, 1854 (“The wooded shore is all lit up with the tender, bright green of birches fluttering in the wind and shining in the light”); see also  May 19, 1860 (“See a green snake, a very vivid yellow green, of the same color with the tender foliage at present, and as if his colors had been heightened by the rain.”);

The scarlet tanagers are come. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager

Shadows of bright clouds sweep over the meadow-grass waving in the wind.

May 19

This has been the longest drought that I remember.  The last rain was April 16th.

A gentle intermittent warm rain at last begins, but to our disappointment it clears up at noon, and very little rain has fallen.

There is a stong southwest wind after the rain, rather novel and agreeable, blowing off some apple blossoms.

May 19, 2014

The grass, especially the meadow-grasses, are seen to wave distinctly, and the shadows of the bright fair-weather cumuli are sweeping over them like the shades of a watered or changeable stuff — June like.

The grass and the tender leaves, refreshed and expanded by the rain, are peculiarly bright and yellowish-green when seen in a favorable light. 

This occurrence of pretty strong southwest winds near the end of May, three weeks after the colder and stronger winds of March and April have died away, after the first heats and perhaps warm rain, when the apple trees and upland buttercups are in bloom, is an annual phenomenon. 

Not being too cold, they are an agreeable novelty and excitement now, and give life to the landscape.

Sorrel just begins to redden some fields. 

I have seen for a week a smaller and redder butterfly than the early red or reddish one. Its hind wings are chiefly dark or blackish. It is quite small. The forward wings, a pretty bright scarlet red with black spots.

See a green snake, a very vivid yellow green, of the same color with the tender foliage at present, and as if his colors had been heightened by the rain. 

This is the season when the meadow-grass is seen waving in the wind at the same time that the shadows of clouds are passing over it. 

At the Ministerial Swamp I see a white lady's-slipper almost out, fully grown, with red ones. 

By the path-side near there, what I should call a veery's nest with four light-blue eggs, but I have not heard the veery note this year, only the yorrick. It is under the projecting edge or bank of the path, — a large mass of fine grass-stubble, pine-needles, etc., but not leaves, and lined with pine-needles.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1860

There is a stong southwest wind after the rain, rather novel and agreeable, blowing off some apple blossoms. See May 20, 1854 ("Methinks we always have at this time those washing winds as now, when the choke-berry is in bloom, — bright and breezy days blowing off some apple blossoms.”); May 27 1852 ("The road is white with the apple blossoms fallen off, as with snowflakes.”); June 1, 1855 ("A very windy day,  . . . scattering the remaining apple blossoms.”)

Shadows of the bright fair-weather cumuli.  See May 30, 1852 (“A breezy, washing day. A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave.”)

May 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 19

After the warm rain 

a strong southwest wind blows off 

the apple blossoms.

Shadows of  bright clouds 

sweep over the meadow-grass

waving in the wind.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,

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