I hear the sound of distant thunder. The perception of beauty. The succession of wildflowers; the history of a hillside.

June 21. 

June 21, 2020

Monday. 7 p.m. — To Cliffs via Hubbard Bathing-Place.

Cherry-birds. I have not seen, though I think I have heard them before, — their fine seringo note, like a vibrating spring in the air. They are a handsome bird, with their crest and chestnut breasts. There is no keeping the run of their goings and comings, but they will be ready for the cherries when they shall be ripe. 

The adder's-tongue arethusa smells exactly like a snake. How singular that in nature, too, beauty and offensiveness should be thus combined! 

In flowers, as well as men, we demand a beauty pure and fragrant, which perfumes the air. The flower which is showy but has no, or an offensive, odor expresses the character of too many mortals. 

The swamp-pink bushes have many whitish spongy excrescences. 

Elder is blossoming; flowers opening now where black berries will be by and by. 

Panicled andromeda, or privet andromeda. 

Nature has looked uncommonly bare and dry to me for a day or two. With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical and corresponding moral revolutions. Nature was so shallow all at once I did not know what had attracted me all my life. I was therefore encouraged when, going through a field this evening, I was unexpectedly struck with the beauty of an apple tree. The perception of beauty is a moral test. 

When, in bathing, I rush hastily into the river the clamshells cut my feet. It is dusky now. Men are fishing on the Corner Bridge. 

I hear the veery and the huckleberry-bird and the catbird. 

It is a cool evening, past 8 o'clock.

I see the tephrosia out through the dusk; a handsome flower. 

What rich crops this dry hillside has yielded! First I saw the Viola pedata here, and then the lupines and the snapdragon covered it; and now the lupines are done and their pods are left, the tephrosia has taken their place. 

This small dry hillside is thus a natural garden. I omit other flowers which grow here, and name only those which to some extent cover it or possess it. No eighth of an acre in a cultivated garden would be better clothed, or with a more pleasing variety, from month to month, and while one flower is in bloom you little suspect that which is to succeed and perchance eclipse it. It is a warmly placed dry hillside beneath a wall, very thinly clad with grass. Such spots there are in nature, natural flower gardens. Of this succession I hardly know which to admire the most. 

It would be pleasant to write the history of one hillside for one year. First and last you have the colors of the rainbow and more, and the various fragrances, which it has not. Blackberries, roses, and dogsbane also are now in bloom here.

I hear neither toads nor bullfrogs at present; they want a warmer night. 

I hear the sound of distant thunder, though no cloud is obvious, muttering like the roar of artillery. That is a phenomenon of this season. As you walk at evening, you see the light of the flashes in the horizon and hear the muttering of distant thunder, where some village is being refreshed with the rain denied to Concord. We say that showers avoid us, that they go down the river, i. e. go off down the Merrimack, or keep to the south. 

Thunder and lightning are remarkable accompaniments to our life, as if to remind us that there always is or should be a kind of battle waging. The thunder is signal guns to us. 

The dwarf orchis (O. herbiola (Bigelow), Platanthera flava (Gray)) at the bathing-place in Hubbard's meadow, not remarkable. 

The purple orchis is a good flower to bring home. It will keep fresh many days, and its buds open at last in a pitcher of water. 

Obtuse galium. 

I observe a rose (called by some moss rose), with a bristly reddish stem; another, with a smooth red stem and but a few prickles; another, with many prickles and bristles. 

Found the single-flowered broom-rape in Love Lane, under the oak.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 21, 1852


The swamp-pink bushes have many whitish spongy excrescences. See June 20, 1853 ("Those great greenish-white puffs on the panicled andromeda are now decaying.On the swamp-pink they are solid.")

The adder's-tongue arethusa smells exactly like a snake. Compare July 26, 1856 ("The pod of the ellipticum, when cut, smells like a bee.") See July 7, 1852 ("The Arethusa bulbosa, "crystalline purple;" Pogonia ophioglossoides, snake-mouthed arethusa, "pale purple;" and the Calopogon pulchellus, grass pink, "pink purple," make one family in my mind, — next to the purple orchis, or with it, — being flowers par excellence, all flower, all color, with inconspicuous leaves, naked flowers, . . .the pogonia has a strong snaky odor."); see also July 2, 857 ("Pogonia ophioglossoides apparently in a day or two. "); to July 7, 1856 ("the snake-head arethusa is now abundant amid the cranberries. there [Gowings Swamp]");July 8, 1857 ("Find a Pogonia ophioglossoides with a third leaf and second flower an inch above the first flower."); August 1, 1856 ("Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow. “)..Coompare Arethusa bulbosa, May 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to find arethusas abundantly out in Hubbard's Close, maybe two or three days ... This high-colored plant shoots up suddenly, all flower, in meadows where it is wet walking. A superb flower.”); June 10, 1854 (“The fragrance of the arethusa is like that of the lady's-slipper, or pleasanter.”).  See also  June 19, 1852 ("These are peculiar days when you find the purple orchis and the arethusa, too, in the meadows."); June 30, 1852 ("Is not this period more than any distinguished for flowers, when roses, swamp-pinks, morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias, orchises, blue flags, epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are all in blossom at once?")

With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical and corresponding moral revolutions.See  June 25, 1852 ("There is a flower for every mood of the mind."); May 23, 1853 ("The poet must bring to Nature the smooth mirror in which she is to be reflected. Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind.”) August 7, 1853 ("Is it not as language that all natural objects affect the poet? He sees a flower or other object, and it is beautiful or affecting to him because it is a symbol of his thought. . .The objects I behold correspond to my mood.”);  June 6, 1857 (“Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind.”); August 30, 1851 ("The fall of each humblest flower marks the annual period of some phase of human life experience. I can be said to note the flower's fall only when I see in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the flower appears to me.)


Nature was so shallow all at once I did not know what had attracted me all my life. See November 18, 1857 ("I lost for the time my rapport or relation to nature. ")

I was unexpectedly struck with the beauty of an apple tree. The perception of beauty is a moral test. See  December 11. 1855 ("Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear "); January 17, 1852 (“As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there; some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable.”); May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world, it was so soothing. I saw that I could not go home to supper and lose it. It was so much fairer, serener, more beautiful, than my mood had been."); July 26, 1852 ("The mind that perceives clearly any natural beauty is in that instant withdrawn from human society."); December 11. 1855 ("It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance."); November 18, 1857 ("You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind."); October 4, 1859 ("You have got to be in a different state from common.") Autumnal Tints ("There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate")

Panicled andromeda, or privet andromeda. See June 21, 1854 ("(panicled andromeda, which loves dry places, now in blossom")

I see the tephrosia out through the dusk; a handsome flower. See July 10, 1857 ("The tephrosia, which grows by Peter's road in the woods, is a very striking and interesting, if I may not say beautiful, flower, especially when, as here, it is seen in a cool and shady place, its clear rose purple contrasting very agreeably with yellowish white, rising from amidst a bed of finely pinnate leaves.")

A natural garden. Blackberries, roses, and dogsbane also are now in bloom here. See June 30, 1852 (" Is not this period more than any distinguished for flowers, when roses, swamp-pinks, morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias, orchises, blue flags, epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are all in blossom at once?")

We say that showers avoid us, that they go down the river, i. e. go off down the Merrimack, See May 16, 1853 ("At 5 P. M., dark, heavy, wet-looking clouds are seen in the northern horizon, perhaps over the Merrimack Valley, and we say it is going down the river and we shall not get a drop."); June 15, 1860 (“A thunder-shower in the north goes down the Merrimack.”)  See also June 16, 1860 ("Thunder-showers show themselves about 2 P.M. in the west, but split at sight of Concord and go east on each side.”); June 16, 1854 ("Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us.”); June 17, 1852 ("A small thunder-shower comes up . . . We see the increasing outline of the slate-colored falling rain from the black cloud. It passes mainly to the south. Also see note to June 9, 1860 ("We have half a dozen showers to-day, distinct summer showers from black clouds suddenly wafted up from the west and northeast; also some thunder and hail, - large white stones.")

The dwarf orchis Platanthera flava (Gray) at the bathing-place in Hubbard's meadow, not remarkable.  See June 18, 1854 ("Platanthera flava at the Harrington Bathing - Place, possibly yesterday , — an unimportant yellowish - green spike of flowers.")

The purple orchis is a good flower to bring home. It will keep fresh many days, and its buds open at last in a pitcher of water. See June 19, 1852 ("The orchis keeps well. One put in my hat this morning, and carried all day, will last fresh a day or two at home"); June 16, 1854 (" It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. It may be plucked when the spike is only half opened, and will open completely and keep perfectly fresh in a pitcher more than a wee") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Fringed Orchids

I observe a rose (called by some moss rose), with a bristly reddish stem.See June 21, 1854 ("Again I am attracted by the deep scarlet of the wild moss rose half open in the grass , all glowing with rosy light."); See also June 12, 1853 ("A wild moss rose in Arethusa Meadow, where are arethusas lingering still.")

The carnival of the year commencing.

May 28.

A rose in a garden.

5 P. M. – To Lupine Hill by boat.

The carnival of the year commencing — a warm, moist, hazy air, the water already smooth and uncommonly high, the river overflowing, and yellow lilies all drowned, their stems not long enough to reach the surface.

I see the boat-club, or three or four in pink shirts, rowing at a distance.

Beech-drops out apparently some days, the old bridge landing at Nawshawtuct; also just out green-briar.

Already the ringing croak of a toad begins to be heard here and there along the river, and the troonk of a bullfrog from time to time.

What is peculiar now, beginning yesterday, after rains, is the sudden heat, and the more general sound of insects by day, and the loud ringing croak of common toads and tree-toads at evening and in the night.

Our river has so little current that when the wind has gone down, as at present, it is dark and perfectly smooth, and at present dusty as a stagnant pool in every part of it; far from there being any murmur, there is no ripple nor eddy for the most part.

Hubbard has plowed up the low-lying field at the bathing place and planted it with potatoes; and now we find that the field we resort to was equally used by the Indians, for their arrowheads are now exposed by the plow.

The sidesaddle-flower conspicuous, but no pollen yet.

The bulbous arethusa out a day or two — probably yesterday. Though in a measure prepared for it, still its beauty surprised me; it is by far the highest and richest color yet. Its intense color in the midst of the green meadow made it look twice as large as reality; it looks very foreign in the midst of our plants - its richly speckled, curled, and bearded lip.

Devil’s needles begin to fly; saw one the 14th.

Thesium just beams now at six o’clock, and the lupines do not look so well for it; their lilac tints show best looking at them towards the sun, for they are transparent. Last night in the dark they were all a pale, whitish color like the moon by day — a mere dull luminousness, as if they reflected light absorbed by day.

Seen from this point now, the pitch pines on Bear Garden Hill, the fresh green foliage of the deciduous trees now so prevails, the pitch pines, which lately looked green, are of a dark brownish or mulberry color by contrast, and the white pines almost as dark, but bluer. In this haziness no doubt they are a little darker than usual.

The grass on pretty high ground is wet with dew an hour before sunset. Whiteweed now, and cotton-grass. 

May 27, 2019

For three quarters of an hour the sun is a great round red ball in the west, reflected in the water; at first a scarlet, but as it descends growing more purple and crimson and larger, with a blue bar of a cloud across it; still reflected in the water, two suns, one above the other, below the hilly bank; as if it were a round hole in the cope of heaven, through which we looked into a crimson atmosphere. If such scenes were painted faithfully they would be pronounced unnatural. 

May 28, 2017

It is remarkable at how little distance a hillside covered with lupines looks blue, while a house or board painted blue is seen so great a distance.

A sprig of wilted fir now grown an inch emits that rich fragrance somewhat like strawberries and pineapples, yet peculiar.

Mayhew, in his “London Labour and London Poor,” treating of the costermongers, or those who get their living in the streets of London, speaks of “the muscular irritability begotten by continued wande ing,” making one “unable to rest for any time in one place.”

Mentions the instance of a girl who had been accustomed to sell sprats in the streets, who having been taken into a gentleman ‘ s house out of charity, the pressure of shoes was intolerable to her.” “ ut no sooner did she hear from her friends, that sprats were again in the market, than as if there were some magical influence in the fish, she at once requested to be freed from the confinement, and permitted to return to her old calling.”

I am perhaps equally accustomed to a roaming field-life, experience a good deal of that muscular irritability, and have a good many friends who let me know when sprats are in the market.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1853

Our river has so little current. See July 30, 1859 ("It is a mere string of lakes which have not made up their minds to be rivers. As near as possible to a standstill."); April 16, 1852 ("A succession of bays it is, a chain of lakes, . . .There is just stream enough for a flow of thought; that is all. Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs. ")

The bulbous arethusa out a day or two — probably yesterday. Though in a measure prepared for it, still its beauty surprised me; it is by far the highest and richest color yet. See May 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to find arethusas abundantly out in Hubbard's Close, maybe two or three days ... This high-colored plant shoots up suddenly, all flower, in meadows where it is wet walking. A superb flower.”) and note to May 29, 1856 ("Two Arethusa bulbosa at Hubbard’s Close apparently a day or two")

The sidesaddle-flower conspicuous, but no pollen yet. See May 30, 1852 ("The sidesaddle-flowers . . . are just beginning to blossom. The last are quite showy flowers when the wind turns them so as to show their under sides.");  June 10, 1854 ("Sidesaddle generally out; petals hang down, apparently a day or two. It is a conspicuous flower."); and note to June 12, 1856 ("Sidesaddle flower numerously out now")

It is remarkable at how little distance a hillside covered with lupines looks blue, See June 5, 1852 ("The transparency of the flower makes its color changeable. It paints a whole hillside with its blue,. . .No other flowers exhibit so much blue. That is the value of the lupine. The earth is blued with them.")

May 28. SeeA Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

Two suns in the west

reflected in water, one

above the other.

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 Maryland yellow-throat's nest, a painted turtle digging in the road

June 10. 

June 10, 2018

Smilacina racemosa well out, how long? 

Sophia has received the whorled arethusa from Northampton to-day. 

P.M.–To Assabet Bath and return by stone bridge. 

A Maryland yellow-throat's nest near apple tree by the low path beyond the pear tree. Saw a bird flit away low and stealthily through the birches, and was soon invisible. Did not discover the nest till after a long search. Perfectly concealed under the loose withered grass at the base of a clump of birches, with no apparent entrance. The usual small deep nest (but not raised up) of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches. The bird flits out very low and swiftly and does not show herself, so that it is hard to find the nest or to identify the bird. 

See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M. 

At the west bank, by the bathing-place, I see that several turtles’ holes have already been opened and the eggs destroyed by the skunk or other animal. Some of them — I judge by the size of the egg — are Emys insculpta's eggs. (I saw several of them digging here on the 6th.) 

Among the shells at one hole I find one minute egg left unbroken. It is not only very small, but broad in proportion to length. Vide collection. 

One E. insculpta is digging there about 7 P. M. Another great place for the last-named turtle to lay her eggs is that rye-field of Abel Hosmer's just north of the stone bridge, and also the neighboring pitch pine wood. I saw them here on the 6th, and also I do this afternoon, in various parts of the field and in the rye, and two or three crawling up the very steep sand-bank there, some eighteen feet high, steeper than sand will lie, — for this keeps caving. They must often roll to the bottom again. 

Apparently the E. insculpta are in the very midst of their laying now. 

As we entered the north end of this rye field, I saw what I took to be a hawk fly up from the south end, though it may have been a crow. It was soon pursued by small birds. When I got there I found an E. insculpta on its back with its head and feet drawn in and motionless, and what looked like the track of a crow on the sand. Undoubtedly the bird which I saw had been pecking at it, and perhaps they get many of the eggs. [Vide June 11th, 1860.]

Common blue flag, how long?

June 10, 2018

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 10, 1858

Smilacina racemosa well out, how long? See June 18, 1857 [Cape Cod] ("The Smilacina racemosa was just out of bloom on the bank. They call it the " wood lily " there. Uncle Sam called it "snake-corn," and said it looked like corn when it first came up"); June 23, 1860 ( Smilacina racemosa, how long?");  September 1, 1856 ("The very dense clusters of the smilacina berries, finely purple-dotted on a pearly ground");  September 18, 1856 ("Smilacina berries of both kinds now commonly ripe"); October 10, 1857 ("I see in the woods some Smilacina racemosa leaves . . . The whole plant gracefully bent almost horizontally with the weight of its dense raceme of bright cherry-red berries at the end.”);See also note to June 19, 1856 ("Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms.) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, False Solomon's Seal

P.M.–To Assabet Bath and return by stone bridge. See May 14, 1857 (“To Assabet Bath and stone bridge. ”)

The usual small deep nest of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches.  See September 8, 1858 ("Looking for my Maryland yellow-throat’s nest, I find that apparently a snake has made it the portico to his dwelling, there being a hole descending into the earth through it!") See also June 7, 1857 (“A nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end.”); June 8, 1855 ("What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs ... nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end—nearly hatched? The nest in the dry grass under a shrub, remarkably concealed. . . .—It is a Maryland yellow-throat.”); June 12, 1859 ("Maryland yellow-throat four eggs, fresh, in sphagnum in the interior omphalos.")

A painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M. See June 10, 1856 (“A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road. She paused at first, but I sat down within two feet, and she soon resumed her work. ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle (Emys Picta)

Common blue flag, how long? See June 12, 1852 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor). Its buds are a dark indigo-blue tip beyond the green calyx. It is rich but hardly delicate and simple enough; a very handsome sword-shaped leaf . . .The blue flag, notwithstanding its rich furniture, its fringed recurved parasols over its anthers, and its variously streaked and colored petals, is loose and coarse in its habit.");  June 14, 1851 ("Saw a blue flag blossom in the meadow while waiting for the stake-driver."); June 14, 1853 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) grows in this pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shores, and is very beautiful, — not too high-colored, — especially its reflections in the water."); June 15, 1859 ("Blue flag abundant."); June 30,1851 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) enlivens the meadow.”); June 30, 1852 ("Is not this period more than any distinguished for flowers, when roses, swamp-pinks, morning-glories, arethusas, pogonias, orchises, blue flags, epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are all in blossom at once?")

June 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 10

a painted turtle

digging her nest in the road

at 5:45

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, a painted turtle digging  in the road

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 the cows eat barberries, and help disperse or disseminate them exactly as they do the apple!

May 29. 

May 29, 2018

P. M. – To Bateman's Pond via Pratt's. 

Buttonwood, one tree, not for two or three days. 

Rubus triflorus, well out, at Calla Swamp, how long?

Calla apparently in two or three, or three or four days, the very earliest. 

Arethusa bulbosa, well out. 

Cornus Canadensis blooms apparently with C. florida; not quite yet. 

I mistook dense groves of little barberries in the droppings of cows in the Boulder Field for apple trees at first. So the cows eat barberries, and help disperse or disseminate them exactly as they do the apple! That helps account for the spread of the barberry, then. 

See the genista, winter-killed at top, some seven or eight rods north of the southernmost large boulder in the Boulder Field. 

Cannot find any large corydalis plants where it has been very plenty. 

A few of the Cornus florida buds by the pond have escaped after all. 

Farmer describes an animal which he saw lately near Bateman's Pond, which he thought would weigh fifty or sixty pounds, color of a she fox at this season, low but very long, and ran somewhat like a woodchuck. I think it must have been an otter, though they are described as dark glossy-brown.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1858

Calla apparently in two or three, or three or four days, the very earliest. See June 7, 1857 (“Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime. . .from the bog near Bateman's Pond”) and note to July 2, 1857 ("Calla palustris . . . at the south end of Gowing's Swamp. Having found this in one place, I now find it in another.")

Arethusa bulbosa, well out. See note to May 29, 1856 ("Two Arethusa bulbosa at Hubbard’s Close apparently a day or two.")

See the genista, winter-killed at top, some seven or eight rods north of the southernmost large boulder in the Boulder Field. See May 21, 1858 ("Pratt shows me what I take to be Genista tinctoria (not budded) from the Boulder Field");  June 28, 1858  ("The Genista tinctoria has been open apparently a week. It has a pretty and lively effect, reminding me for some reason of the poverty-grass."). See also April 21, 1852 ("In the pasture beyond the brook, where grow the barberries, huckleberries, — creeping juniper, etc., are half a dozen huge boulders, which look grandly now in the storm, covered with greenish-gray lichens, alternating with the slatish-colored rock. Slumbering, silent, . . .I look down on some of them as on the backs of oxen. A certain personality, or at least brute life, they seem to have."); November 3, 1857 ("It is singular that several of those rocks should be thus split into twins. Even very low ones, just appearing above the surface, are divided and parallel, having a path between them. It would be something to own that pasture with the great rocks in it")

The Cornus florida by the pond. See May 18, 1857 (“There is a large tree [Cornus florida] on the further side the ravine near Bateman's Pond and another by some beeches on the rocky hillside a quarter of a mile northeast.”)

It is time now to bring our philosophy out of doors.

June 4. 

P. M. — To Bare Hill. 

The early potentilla is now erect in the June grass. 

Salix tristis is going to seed, showing some cotton; also some S. rostrate. 

I am surprised to see some kind of fish dart away in Collier's veronica ditch, for it about dries up and has no outlet. 

I observed yesterday, the first time this year, the lint on the smooth surface of the Assabet at the Hemlocks, giving the water a stagnant look. It is an agreeable phenomenon to me, as connected with the season and suggesting warm weather. I suppose it to be the down from the new leaves which so rapidly become smooth. There may be a little pitch pine pollen with it now. The current is hardly enough to make a clear streak in it here and there. The stagnant-looking surface, where the water slowly circles round in that great eddy, has the appearance of having been dusted over. This lint now covers my clothes as I go through the sprout- lands, but it gets off remarkably before long. Each under side of a leaf you strike leaves the mark of its lint on your clothes, but it is clean dirt and soon wears off. 

One thing that chiefly distinguishes this season from three weeks ago is that fine serene undertone or earth-song as we go by sunny banks and hillsides, the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity. It is time now to bring our philosophy out of doors. Our thoughts pillow themselves unconsciously in the troughs of this serene, rippling sea of sound. Now first we begin to be peripatetics. No longer our ears come in contact with the bold echoing earth, but everywhere recline on the spring cushion of a cricket's chirp. These rills that ripple from every hillside become at length a universal sea of sound, nourishing our ears when we are most unconscious. 

In that first apple tree at Wyman's an apparent hairy woodpecker's nest (from the size of the bird), about ten feet from ground. The bird darts away with a shrill, loud chirping of alarm, incessantly repeated, long before I get there, and keeps it up as long as I stay in the neighborhood. The young keep up an in cessant fine, breathing peep which can be heard across the road and is much increased when they hear you approach the hole, they evidently expecting the old bird. 

I perceive no offensive odor. I saw the bird fly out of this hole, May 1st, and probably the eggs were laid about that time. Vide it next year. 

In the high pasture behind Jacob Baker's, soon after coming out of the wood, I scare up a bay-wing. She runs several rods close to the ground through the thin grass, and then lurks behind tussocks, etc. The nest has four eggs, dull pinkish-white with brown spots; nest low in ground, of stubble lined with white horse hair. 

Carya glabra [Carya glabra – pignut hickory], apparently a day at least. 

Oldenlandia on Bare Hill, along above wall opposite the oak, a rod or more off and westerly. Apparently several days at least, but it appears not to do well. It has a dry, tufted look, somewhat like young savory- leaved aster, on the bare rocky hill and in the clear spaces between the huckleberry bushes. Reminds me of a heath. Does not blossom so full as once I saw it. 

Arethusa. 

Crimson fungus (?) on black birch leaves, as if bespattered with blood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4, 1857

The early potentilla is now erect in the June grass. See June 4, 1855 (“There are now many potentillas ascendant.”)

Each under side of a leaf you strike leaves the mark of its lint on your clothes, but it is clean dirt and soon wears off. See June 4, 1855 (“Lint comes off on to clothes from the tender leaves, but it is clean dirt and all gone when you get home. . .”); June 4, 1854 (“ The surface of the still water nowadays looking like dust at a little distance. Is it the down of the leaves blown off? . . .”)

That fine serene undertone or earth-song . . . imparting its own serenity. See June 4, 1854 (“These warm and dry days, which put spring far behind, the sound of the cricket at noon has a new value and significance, so serene and cool . . ..”) ;May 12, 1857 (“The spirit of its earth-song, of its serene and true philosophy, was breathed into me, and I saw the world as through a glass, as it lies eternally”);; May 22, 1854 (“The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. . . . . Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. . . .A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal.”); June 1, 1856 (“Was soothed and cheered by I knew not what at first, but soon detected the now more general creak of crickets”); June 13, 1851 ("I listen to the ancient, familiar, immortal, dear cricket sound under all others, and as these cease I become aware of the general earth-song.”)  June 17, 1852 (“The earth-song of the cricket! Before Christianity was, it is. Health! health! health! is the burden of its song. ”); July 14, 1851 (“It is a sound from within, not without.You cannot dispose of it by listening to it. In proportion as I am stilled I hear it. It reminds me that I am a denizen of the earth.”);

The [peep of the young] is much increased when they hear you approach the hole, they evidently expecting the old bird. I perceive no offensive odor. See June 10, 1856 ("They utter their squeaking hiss whenever I cover the hole with my hand, apparently taking it for the approach of the mother. A strong, rank fetid smell issues from the hole.?”)  

A bay-wing . . .  The nest has four eggs, dull pinkish-white with brown spots. . . .See May 18, 1855 ("At Clamshell a bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) -- some black-spotted, others not.”); May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs . . . with very dark blotches"); May 31, 1856 (“A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea.), with six of those oblong narrow gray eggs speckled with much brown at end. . . .The bird would steal out through the grass when I came within a rod, and then, after running a rod or two, take to wing.”)

Oldenlandia on Bare Hill . . . See July 8, 1857 ("Edith Emerson shows me Oldenlandia purpurea var. longifolia, which she saw very abundantly in bloom on the Blue Hills . . .”)

I love this moisture in its season.

Rhexia virgini

August 1. 

Burdock, several days at least. Erechthites, apparently two or three days, by Peter's Path, end of Cemetery, the middle flowers first.

Crotalaria in fine lechea field, how long? Still out, and some pods fully grown. 

Liatris will apparently open in a day or two. 

Diplopappus umbellatus at Peter's wall. Desmodium Canadense, some time; several great stems five feet high, a little spreading. 

August 01, 2016

Since July 30th, inclusive, we have had perfect dog-days without interruption. The earth has suddenly invested with a thick musty mist. The sky has become a mere fungus. A thick blue musty veil of mist is drawn before the sun. The sun has not been visible, except for a moment or two once or twice a day, all this time, nor the stars by night. Moisture reigns. 

You cannot dry a napkin at the window, nor press flowers without their mildewing. You imbibe so much moisture from the atmosphere that you are not so thirsty, nor is bathing so grateful as a week ago. The burning heat is tempered, but as you lose sight of the sky and imbibe the musty, misty air, you exist as a vegetable, a fungus. 

Unfortunate those who have not got their hay. I see them wading in overflowed meadows and pitching fthe black and mouldy swaths about in vain that they may dry. In the meanwhile, vegetation is becoming rank, vines of all kinds are rampant. Squashes and melons are said to grow a foot in a night. But weeds grow as fast. The corn unrolls. Berries abound and attain their full size. 

Once or twice in the day there is an imperfect gleam of yellow sunlight for a moment through some thinner part of the veil, reminding us that we have not seen the sun so long, but no blue sky is revealed. The earth is completely invested with cloud like wreaths of vapor (yet fear no rain and need no veil), beneath which flies buzz hollowly and torment, and mosquitoes hum and sting as if they were born of such an air. 

The drooping spirits of mosquitoes revive, and they whet their stings anew. Legions of buzzing flies blacken the furniture. (For a week at least have heard that snapping sound under pads.) We have a dense fog every night, which lifts itself but a short distance during the day. At sundown I see it curling up from the river and meadows. 

However, I love this moisture in its season. I believe it is good to breathe, wholesome as a vapor bath.

Toadstools shoot up in the yards and paths. 

The Great Meadows being a little wet, — hardly so much as usual, — I took off my shoes and went barefoot some two miles through the cut-grass, from Peter's to Sphaerocarpa Pools and backward by river. Very little grass cut there yet. The cut-grass is bad for tender feet, and you must be careful not to let it draw through your hands, for it will cut like a fine saw. 

I was surprised to see dense beds of rhexia in full bloom there, apparently on hummocks a rod in diameter left by the ice, or in long ridges mixed with ferns and some Lysimachia lanceolata, arrowhead, etc. They make a splendid show, these brilliant rose-colored patches, especially in the neighborhood of Copan. It is about the richest color to be seen now. Yet few ever see them in this perfection, unless the haymaker who levels them, or the birds that fly over the meadow. 

Far in the broad wet meadows, on the hummocks and ridges, these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over. We, dwelling and walking on the dry upland, do not suspect their existence. How obvious and gay to those creatures that fly over the meadow! Seen only by birds and mowers. These gay standards otherwise unfurled in vain. 

Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow there. 

Ludwigia sphaerocarpa apparently a week out, a foot and a half to two feet high.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 1, 1856

Liatris will apparently open in a day or two See );August 26, 1858 ("The liatris is about (or nearly) in prime."); September 6, 1859 ("The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. It is a very rich purple in favorable lights and makes a great show where it grows."); September 28, 1858 ("Liatris done, apparently some time.").See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Liatris

Perfect dog-days without interruption. See July 30, 1856 (“This is a perfect dog-day. The atmosphere thick, mildewy, cloudy. It is difficult to dry anything. The sun is obscured, yet we expect no rain”)

Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow there. See July 7, 1856 ("The snake-head arethusa is now abundant amid the cranberries”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snakemouth Orchid

Far in the broad wet meadows, on the hummocks and ridges, these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over. See July 18, 1852 ("The petals of the rhexia have a beautiful clear purple with a violet tinge."); and note to August 5, 1858 ("I cannot sufficiently admire the rhexia, one of the highest-colored purple flowers, but difficult to bring home in its perfection, with its fugacious petals.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Rhexia Virginica (meadow-beauty)

Far in the meadows

 these bright beds of rhexia 

seen only by birds.

The purple finch still sings over the street.

July 7. 

I see a difference now between the alder leaves near Island and edge of meadow westward, on Hill; the former slightly downy beneath, the latter (apparently Alnus serrulata) green and smooth but yet not pointed at base. 

Do I not see a taller kind of wool grass in that birch meadow east of Hill? 

P. M. — To Gowing’s Swamp. 

The purple finch still sings over the street. 

The sagittaria, large form, is out, roadside, Moore’s Swamp. 

The Vaccinium Oxycoccus is almost entirely out of bloom, and the berries are as big as small huckleberries (while the V. macrocarpon is in full bloom, and no berries appear on it). It must therefore have begun about the 1st of June. 

Saw the Kalmia glauca by the small cranberry, betrayed by its two-edged twig. 

Portsmouth Public Library

The snake-head arethusa is now abundant amid the cranberries there.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 7, 1856


. . .the latter (apparently Alnus serrulata) green and smooth but yet not pointed at base. See April 13, 1856 ("There were alders out at Well Meadow Head, as large bushes as any. Can they be A. serrulata?"): April 15, 1856 ("What I think the Alnus serrulata (?) will shed pollen to-day on the edge of Catbird Meadow.")


The purple finch still sings over the street. See  June 25, 1853 ("I think it must be the purple finch. . .which I see and hear singing so sweetly and variedly in the gardens, — one or two to-day. . . .It has a little of the martin warble and of the canary bird.") See also April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds."; April 15, 1856 ("The purple finch is singing on the elms "); )

The sagittaria, large form, is out, roadside, Moore’s Swamp See July 28, 1852 ("The large shaped sagittaria out, a large crystalline-white three-petalled flower.")

Saw the Kalmia glauca by the small cranberry, betrayed by its two-edged twig. See January 9, 1855 ("Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots . . . the Kalmia glauca var.rosmarinifolia.")

The snake-head arethusa. (Pogonia ophioglossoides.) Snake-mouthed Arethusa, from which genus it was taken; stem nearly a foot high, with a single flower, nodding and pale-purple, and one oval-lanceolate leaf, and a leafy bract near the flower; lip fimbriate; swamps; July. The flower resembles a snake's head, whence its specific name. Reports on the herbaceous plants and on the quadrupeds of Massachusetts 199 (1840).  See July 7, 1852 ("The Arethusa bulbosa, "crystalline purple;" Pogonia ophioglossoides, snake-mouthed arethusa, "pale purple;" and the Calopogon pulchellus, grass pink, "pink purple," make one family in my mind, — next to the purple orchis, or with it, — being flowers par excellence, all flower, all color, with inconspicuous leaves, naked flowers, . . .the pogonia has a strong snaky odor."); See also June 21, 1852  ("The adder's-tongue arethusa smells exactly like a snake."); July 2, 1857 (“Pogonia ophioglossoides apparently in a day or two.”); July 8, 1857 (“Find a Pogonia ophioglossoides with a third leaf and second flower an inch above the first flower.”); August 1, 1856 ("Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow”)

Now abundant there

the snake-head arethusa

amid cranberries

Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more . . .

May 29. 
P. M. —— Ride to Painted-Cup Meadow. 

Dragon mouth
 (Arethusa bulbosa) orchid

Two Arethusa bulbosa at Hubbard’s Close apparently a day or two.

Golden senecio there, a day or two, at least. White clover. Ranunculus repens (sepals not recurved and leaves a spotted look), apparently a day. Geum rivale, well out. Common crataegus, apparently some days. Juniperus communis, a day or two at least, probably more. 

To return to Painted-Cup Meadow, I do not perceive the rank odor of Thalictrum Cornuti expanding leaves to-day. How more than fugacious it is! Evidently this odor is emitted only at particular times. 

A cuckoo’s note, loud and hollow, from a wood-side.

Found a painted-cup with more yellow than usual in it, and at length Edith found one perfectly yellow. 

What a flowery place, a vale of Enna, is that meadow! Painted Cup, Erigeron bellidifolius, Thalictrum dioicum, Viola Muhlenbergii, fringed polygala, buck-bean, pedicularis, orobanche, etc., etc.

Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones. 

Saw sanicle well flower-budded. Cherry-birds on the apple trees. Blue-eyed grass, probably to-morrow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1856

Arethusa bulbosa at Hubbard’s Close apparently a day or two. . . . See May 28, 1853 ("The bulbous arethusa out a day or two — probably yesterday. Though in a measure prepared for it, still its beauty surprised me; it is by far the highest and richest color yet. Its intense color in the midst of the green meadow made it look twice as large as reality; it looks very foreign in the midst of our plants - its richly speckled, curled, and bearded lip."); May 29, 1858 ("Arethusa bulbosa, well out."); May 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to find arethusas abundantly out in Hubbard's Close, maybe two or three days ... This high-colored plant shoots up suddenly, all flower, in meadows where it is wet walking. A superb flower.”); June 1, 1855 (“Arethusa out at Hubbard’s Close; say two or three days at a venture, there being considerable.“); June 10, 1854 (“The fragrance of the arethusa is like that of the lady's-slipper, or pleasanter.”)

Found a painted-cup with more yellow than usual in it, and at length Edith found one perfectly yellow. . . . See May 5, 1853  ("The Emerson children found blue and white violets May 1st at Hubbard's Close, . . .  but I have not been able to find any yet.”)  See also June 6, 1858 ("Edith Emerson has found, in the field (Merriam’s) just south of the Beck Stow pine grove, Lepidium campestre"); August 9, 1858 ("Edith Emerson gives me an Asclepias tuberosa from Naushon, which she thinks is now in its prime there.”); July 8, 1857 ("Edith Emerson shows me Oldenlandia purpurea var. longifolia, which she saw very abundantly in bloom on the Blue Hills.”); September 28, 1853 ("The fringed gentian was out before Sunday; was (some of it) withered then, says Edith Emerson.”)

Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more. See April 24, 1854 ("Go to new trees. . . and you hear new birds. "); July 2, 1857 (“Having found this in one place, I now find it in another.”); July 31, 1859 ("Where there are rare, wild, rank plants, there too some wild bird will be found.")

Dusk. We go out after the rain to find the Lady's slipper.  The woods are dripping wet, the hemlocks' bright new growth just beginning to show. Along the cliff edge three Lady's slippers bloom.  The hermit thrush sings. 

Lady-slippers bloom

in the damp evening woods as

the hermit thrush sings.

May 29, 2016

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