Almost every plant, however humble, has its day.

 

September 10. 

 

Lowell to Boston and Concord.

There was a frost this morning, as my host, who keeps a market, informed me.

Leaving Lowell at 7 A. M. in the cars, I observed and admired the dew on a fine grass in the meadows, which was almost as white and silvery as frost when the rays of the newly risen sun fell on it.

Some of it was probably the frost of the morning melted.

I saw that this phenomenon was confined to one species of grass, which grew in narrow curving lines and small patches along the edges of the meadows or lowest ground, grass with very fine stems and branches, which held the dew; in short, that it was what I had falsely called Eragrostis capillaris, but which is probably the Sporobolus serotinus, almost the only, if not the only, grass there in its prime.

And thus this plant has its day.

Owing to the number of its а very fine branches, now in their prime, it holds the dew like a cobweb,-a clear drop at the end and lesser drops or beads all along the fine branches and stems. 

It grows on the higher parts of the meadows, where other herbage is thin, and is the less apt to be cut; and, seen toward the sun not long after sunrise, it is very conspicuous and bright a quarter of a mile off, like frostwork.

Call it dew-grass.

I find its hyaline seed.

September 10, 2022

Almost every plant, however humble, has thus its day, and sooner or later becomes the characteristic feature of some part of the landscape or other.

Almost all other grasses are now either cut or withering, and are, beside, so coarse comparatively that they can never present this phenomenon.

It is only a grass that is in its full vigor, as well as fine-branched (capillary), that can thus attract and uphold the dew.

This is noticed about the time the first frosts come.

If you sit at an open attic window almost anywhere, about the 20th of September, you will see many a milkweed down go sailing by on a level with you, though commonly it has lost its freight, — notwithstanding that you may not know of any of these plants growing in your neighborhood.

My host, yesterday, told me that he was accustomed once to chase a black fox [Like the silver, made a variety of the red by Baird.] from Lowell over this way and lost him at Chelmsford. Had heard of him within about six years. A Carlisle man also tells me since that this fox used to turn off and run northwest from Chelmsford, but that he would soon after return.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 10, 1860

Almost every plant, however humble, has its day. See March 18, 1853 ("These plants waste not a day, not a moment, suitable to their development."); August 26, 1856 ("Each humblest plant, or weed, as we call it, stands there to express some thought or mood of ours."); August 30, 1851 ("This plant acts not an obscure, but essential, part in the revolution of the seasons. May I perform my part as well!");  September 13, 1852 ("How earnestly and rapidly each creature, each flower, is fulfilling its part while its day lasts!"); September 17, 1857 ("How perfectly each plant has its turn! – as if the seasons revolved for it alone."); October 22, 1858 ("When you come to observe faithfully the changes of each humblest plant, you find, it may be unexpectedly, that each has sooner or later its peculiar autumnal tint or tints")


My host, yesterday, told me that he was accustomed once to chase a black fox. See January 30, 1855 ("Minott to-day enumerates the red, gray, black, and what he calls the Sampson fox. He says, “It’s a sort of yaller fox, but their pelts ain’t good for much.” He never saw one, but the hunters have told him of them. He never saw a gray nor a black one.") See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

Dew on a fine grass

white and silvery as frost –

the newly risen sun.

Only a grass in 

its full vigor can attract 

and uphold the dew.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,   Almost every plant, however humble, has its day.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-600910

The Concord River at Lowell

September 9.

In Lowell.-- My host says that the thermometer was at 80° yesterday morning, and this morning is at 52º. 

Sudden coolness.

Clears up in afternoon, and I walk down the Merrimack on the north bank.

I see very large plants of the lanceolate thistle, four feet high and very branching.

Also Aster cordata with the corymbosus.

Concord River has a high and hard bank at its mouth, maybe thirty feet high on the east side; and my host thinks it was originally about as high on the west side, where now it is much lower and flat, having been dug down.

There is a small isle in the middle of the mouth.

There are rips in the Merrimack just below the mouth of the Concord.

There is a fall and dam in the Concord at what was Hurd's factory, — the principal fall on the Concord, in Lowell, — one at a bleachery above, and at Whipple's, — three in all below Billerica dam.

  

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, September 9, 1860

Clear yellow light of the western sky reflected in the smooth water.

November 15

November 15, 2013

Ρ . M. - To Fair Haven Hill and by boat to witch-hazel bush. 

Were they not the white-in-tail birds I saw this afternoon? Cricket still.

After yesterday's clear, windy weather we have to-day less wind and much haze. It is Indian-summer-like. 

The river has risen yet higher than last night, so that I cut across Hubbard's meadow with ease. The flood has covered most muskrat-cabins again.

Take up a witch-hazel with still some fresh blossoms.

At sundown, on the water, I hear come booming up the river what I suppose is the sound of cannon fired in Lowell to celebrate the Whig victory, the voting down the new Constitution. Perchance no one else in Concord hears them, and it is remarkable that I hear them, who is only interested in the natural phenomenon of sound borne far over water. The river is now so full and so high over the meadows , and at that hour was so smooth withal, that perchance the waves of sound flowed over the smooth surface of the water with less obstruction and further than in any other direction. 

Just after sundown, the waters become suddenly smooth, and the clear yellow light of the western sky is handsomely reflected in the water, making it doubly light to me on the water, diffusing light from below as well as above.

The tall wool-grass  with its stately heads, still stands above and is reflected in the smooth water. Were those insects on the surface after the moon rose skaters or water-bugs? 

After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined, and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, insensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft. 

This afternoon has wanted no condition to make it a gossamer day, it seems to me, but a calm atmosphere. Plainly the spiders cannot be abroad on the water unless it is smooth. The one I witnessed this fall was at time of flood. May it be that they are driven out of their retreats like muskrats and snow-fleas, and spin these lines for their support? Yet they work on the causeway, too  

I see many cranberries on the vines at the bottom  making a great show. It might be worth the while, where possible, to flood a cranberry meadow as soon as they are ripe and before the frosts, and so preserve them plump and sound till spring. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 15, 1853

Cricket still. See November 15, 1859 (" I hear in several places a faint cricket note") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November (Listening for the last Cricket)

To-day less wind and much haze. It is Indian-summer-like. See November 15, 1859 ("A very pleasant Indian summer day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

The flood has covered most muskrat-cabins again. See November 15, 1859 ("The river  is perfectly smooth between the uniformly tawny meadows, and I see several musquash-cabins off Hubbard Shore distinctly outlined as usual in the November light. A very pleasant Indian summer day. ")

Take up a witch-hazel with still some fresh blossoms.  See November 14, 1858 ("Probably the witch-hazel and many other flowers lingered till the 11th, when it was colder. The last leaves and flowers (?) may be said to fall about the middle of November."); November 24, 1859 ("At Spanish Brook Path, the witch-hazel (one flower) lingers.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

The clear yellow light of the western sky . . . reflected in the water. See November 15, 1859 ("The clouds were never more fairly reflected in the water than now.") See also November 25, 1857 (“[T]he thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of”) and  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

This afternoon has wanted no condition to make it a gossamer day. See November 15, 1858 ("Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November");
November 15, 1859 ("A fine gossamer is streaming from every fence and tree and stubble.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

November 15. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 15

Clear yellow light of

the western sky reflected

in the smooth water.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Clear yellow light of the western sky 

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-531115