A Book of the Seasons, The Great Bidens (beggarticks, bur-marigold)

 

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures 

completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

How earnestly and rapidly

each creature, each flower,

is fulfilling its part while its day lasts!

 September 13, 1852 

Here at this season

a golden blaze salutes me

from a thousand suns.

September 13, 1852

Bidens in the sun –

the flower and ornament

of the riverside. 

September 14,  1854

June 16. By and by the bidens (marigold) will stand in the river, as now the ranunculus. The summer's fervor will have sunk into it. June 16, 1852

August 20. Bidens, either connata or cernua, by Moore's potato- field. August 20, 1852

August 20. P. M. - To Great Meadows. Bidens connata (?) by pond-hole beyond Agricultural Ground; no rays yet at least. August 20, 1853

August 23.The great bidens is only partially out, by the side of the brook that comes out of Deacon Farrar's Swamp and runs under the causeway east of the Corner Bridge. The flowers are all turned toward the westering sun and are two to two and a half or more inches in diameter, like sun flowers, hieroglyphics of the seasons, only to be read by the priests of Nature. I go there as to one of autumn's favorite haunts. Most poems, like the fruits, are sweetest toward the blossom end. August 23, 1853 

August 24. Bidens chrysanthemoides, of a small size and earlier, by Turnpike, now in prime there. August 24, 1853

August 28. At Tarbell's andromeda swamp. A probable Bidens connata or small chrysanthemoides. August 28, 1856

August 30. As I went along from the Minott house to the Bidens Brook , I was quite bewildered by the beauty and variety of the asters , now in their prime there , . . . The bidens has not yet reached its greatest profusion .August 30, 1853

August 30. Bidens connata abundant at Moore's Swamp, how long? August 30, 1856

August 30. P. M. — Up Assabet. The river began to fall perhaps yesterday, after rising perhaps fourteen or fifteen inches. It is now about one foot higher than before the rain of the 25th. A rise of one foot only from low water gives an appearance of fullness to the stream . . .The river is fuller, with more current; a cooler wind blows; the reddish Panicum agrostoides stands cool along the banks; the great yellow flowers of the Bidens chrysanthemoides are drowned, and now I do not see to the bottom as I paddle along.  August 30, 1859

August 30. Now is the season of rank weeds, as Polygonum Careyi, tall rough goldenrod, Ambrosia elatior, primrose, erechthites (some of this seven feet high), Bidens frondosa (also five feet high). August 30, 1859

August 31.  The great Bidens chrysanthemoides , now in blossom , like a sunflower , two inches in diameter , is for the most part far under water , blossoms and all . I see its drowned flowers far beneath the surface. August 31, 1852

August 31. A To Moore's Swamp. Bidens cernua well out, the flowering one. August 31, 1853

September 1. There is no Bidens cernua, if that is it, by the Turnpike. It was apparently killed by the recent high water. September 1, 1856

September 5. What further adds to the beauty of the bank is the hibiscus, in prime, and the great bidens. September 5, 1860 

September 7.To Spencer Brook, a place for hawks. Bidens chrysanthemoides there; how long? September 7, 1857

September 9. Bidens cernua, how long? Septenber 9, 1858

September 11. Bidens cernua, or nodding burr marigold, like a small sunflower (with rays ) in Heywood Brook, i. e. beggar- tick.

Bidens connata (?), without rays, in Hubbard's Meadow . . . How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather! When I thought they were about done, they appear to revive, and moreover their beauty is enhanced, as if by the contrast of the louring atmosphere with their bright colors. Such are the purple gerardia and the Bidens cernua. September 11, 1852

September 12.  In Baker's Meadow beyond Pine Hill; also the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals. September 12, 1851

• Bidens frondosa  – devil's beggarticks, devil's pitchfork
• Bidens connata – purplestem beggartick
• Bidens cernua  – nodding beggarticks, nodding bur-marigold
• Bidens chrysanthemoides (laevis) – smooth beggarticks, smooth bur-marigold, larger bur-marigold.

September 12. The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now, but much of the Beckii was drowned by the rise of the river. Omitting this, the first two are inconspicuous flowers, cheap and ineffectual, commonly without petals, like the erechthites, but the third and fourth are conspicuous and interesting, expressing by their brilliant yellow the ripeness of the low grounds. September 12, 1859

September 13. The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook. The golden glow of autumn concentrated, more golden than the sun. How surely this yellow comes out along the brooks in autumn. It yellows along the brook. The earth wears different colors or liveries at different seasons. At this season, a golden blaze salutes me here from a thousand suns. How earnestly and rapidly each creature, each flower, is fulfilling its part while its day lasts! Nature never lost a day, nor a moment. As the planet in its orbit and around its axis, so do the seasons, so does time, revolve, with a rapidity inconceivable. In the moment, in the eon, time ever advances with this rapidity. Clear the track ! The plant waits a whole year, and then blossoms the instant it is ready and the earth is ready for it, without the conception of delay. September 13, 1852 

September 13. The Bidens chrysanthemoides, now apparently in its prime by the river, now almost dazzles you with its great sunny disk. I feast my eyes on it annually. It grows but sparingly near the village, but those few never fail to make their appearance at last. The yellow lily's is a cool yellow in comparison, but in this is seen the concentrated heat of autumn. September 13, 1859 

September 14.  The Bidens Beckii is drowned or dried up, and has given place to the great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory, especially at I. Rice’s shore, where there are dense beds. It is a splendid yellow — Channing says a lemon yellow — and looks larger than it is (two inches in diameter, more or less). Full of the sun. It needs a name. September 14, 1854 

September 14.  Half a dozen Bidens chrysanthemoides in river, not long.  September 14, 1858 

September 15. What I must call Bidens cernua, like a small chrysanthemoides, is bristly hairy, somewhat connate and apparently regularly toothed.  September 15, 1856

September 18.  On account of freshet I have seen no Bidens Beckii nor chrysanthemoides. September 18, 1856

September 19. Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside. September 19, 1851

September 19.  The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound. September 19, 1852

September 24 Still the great bidens blooms by the causeway side beyond the bridge. September 24, 1851

September 29. I can hardly clamber along the grape cliff now with out getting my clothes covered with desmodium ticks, — there especially the rotundifolium and paniculatum. Though you were running for your life, they would have time to catch and cling to your clothes, — often piece of a saw blade with three teeth. You pause at a convenient place and spend a long time picking them off, which it took so short a time to attach. They will even cling to your hand as you go by. They cling like babes to the mother's breast, by instinct. Instead of being caught and detained ourselves by birdlime, we are compelled to catch these seeds and carry them with us.  These almost invisible nets, as it were, are spread for us, and whole coveys of desmodium and bidens seeds and burs steal transportation out of us. I have found myself often covered, as it were with an imbricated scaly coat of the brown desmodium seeds or a bristling chevaux-de-frise of beggar-ticks, and had to spend a quarter of an hour or more picking them off at some convenient place; and so they got just what they wanted, deposited in another place. How surely the desmodium, growing on some rough cliff-side, or the bidens, on the edge of a pool, prophesy the coming of the traveller, brute or human, that will transport their seeds on his coat!  September 29, 1856

October 2. The beggar-ticks (Bidens) now adhere to my clothes. I also find the desmodium sooner thus — as a magnet discovers the steel filings in a heap of ashes — than if I used my eyes alone. October 2, 1852

October 8.   The Bidens cernuum is quite common and fresh yet in Everett's meadow by Turnpike. October 8, 1856

October 9.  Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.  October 9, 1852

October 12. The seeds of the bidens, — without florets, — or beggar-ticks, with four-barbed awns like hay-hooks, now adhere to your clothes, so that you are all bristling with them. Certainly they adhere to nothing so readily as to woolen cloth, as if in the creation of them the invention of woolen clothing by man had been foreseen. How tenacious of its purpose to spread and plant its race! By all methods nature secures this end, whether by the balloon, or parachute, or hook, or barbed spear like this, or mere lightness which the winds can waft.  October 12, 1851

 

October 20.  Now in low grounds the different species of bidens or beggar’s-ticks adhere to your clothes. These bidents, tridents, quadridents are shot into you by myriads of unnoticed foes. October 20, 1858

October 23.  A storm of arrows these weeds have showered on me, as I went through their moats. How irksome the task to rid one's self of them! We are fain to let some adhere. Through thick and thin I wear some; hold on many days. In an instant a thousand seeds of the bidens fastened themselves firmly to my clothes, and  I carried them for miles, planting one here and another there. They are as thick on my clothes as the teeth of a comb.  October 23, 1853

November 9.   Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata (flat in a brook), yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus, etc. A late three ribbed goldenrod, with large serratures in middle of the narrow leaves, ten or twelve rays. Potentilla argentea.   November 9, 1852.

November 23. Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse, etc., etc. November 23, 1852

January 13. I see in low grounds numerous heads of bidens, with their seeds still. January 13, 1860

See also:

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Great Bidens

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-bidens

Perambulated Carlisle line.

September 19.

Perambulated Carlisle line.

Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside.

Found the bound stones on Carlisle by the river all or mostly tipped over by the ice and water, like the pitch pines about Walden Pond.

Grapes very abundant along that line.

The soapwort gentian now.

In an old pasture, now grown up to birches and other trees, followed the cow-paths to the old apple trees.

Mr. Isaiah Green of Carlisle, who lives nearest to the Kibbe Place, can remember when there were three or four houses around him (he is nearly eighty years old and has always lived there and was born there); now he is quite retired, and the nearest road is scarcely used at all.

He spoke of one old field, now grown up, which [we] were going through, as the "hog-pasture," formerly.

He found the meadows so dry that it was thought to be a good time to burn out the moss.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1851

Perambulated Carlisle line. See September 12, 1851 (" On Monday, the 15th instant, I am going to perambulate the bounds of the town. ...It is a sort of reconnoissance of its frontiers authorized by the central government of the town, which will bring the surveyor in contact with whatever wild inhabitant or wilderness its territory embraces."); September 15, 1851 ("Commenced perambulating the town bounds."); September 16, 1851 ("The inhabitants of Lincoln yield sooner than usual to the influence of the rising generation, and are a mixture of rather simple but clever with a well-informed and trustworthy people."); September 17, 1851 ("Perambulated the Lincoln line."); September 18, 1851 ("Perambulated Bedford line."); September 20, 1851 ("A fatal coarseness is the result of mixing in the trivial affairs of men.. . . I feel inexpressibly begrimed."); September 21, 1851 ("Here was the cider-mill, and there the orchard, and there the hog-pasture; and so men lived, and ate, and drank, and passed away, — like vermin.")

Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks. See September 13, 1852 ("The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook. The golden glow of autumn concentrated, more golden than the sun. How surely this yellow comes out along the brooks in autumn."); September 13, 1859  ("The Bidens chrysanthemoides, now apparently in its prime by the river, now almost dazzles you with its great sunny disk. I feast my eyes on it annually. . . .  in this is seen the concentrated heat of autumn."); October 12, 1851 ("The seeds of the bidens, — without florets, — or beggar-ticks, with four-barbed awns like hay-hooks, now adhere to your clothes, so that you are all bristling with them. Certainly they adhere to nothing so readily as to woolen cloth, as if in the creation of them the invention of woolen clothing by man had been foreseen. How tenacious of its purpose to spread and plant its race! By all methods nature secures this end, whether by the balloon, or parachute, or hook, or barbed spear like this, or mere lightness which the winds can waft") See also 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Great Bidens

The soapwort gentian now. See September 19, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises, -- solid bulbs of blue from the shade, the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river, after so much has been mown") See also September 6, 1857 ("Soapwort gentian, out not long");;September 8, 1852 ("Gentiana saponaria out."); September 22, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now.") September 25, 1857 ("You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Soapwort Gentian 

Mr. Isaiah Green of Carlisle . . .spoke of one old field, now grown up . . . as the "hog-pasture," formerly. See June 10, 1853 ("Crossed on to the old Carlisle road by the house north of Isaiah Green‘s, and then across the road through the woods to the Paul Adams house by Bateman‘s Pond. Saw a hog-pasture of a dozen acres in the woods, with thirty or forty large hogs and a shelter for them at night, a half-mile east of the last house, — something rare in these days here abouts.)

A footpath may be found encircling all our ponds.

November 9. 

Tuesday. 

November 9, 2020

Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata (flat in a brook), yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus, etc. 

A late three ribbed goldenrod, with large serratures in middle of the narrow leaves, ten or twelve rays. Potentilla argentea.

Fore part of November time for walnutting.

All around Walden, both in the thickest wood and where the wood has been cut off, there can be traced a meandering narrow shelf on the steep hillside, the footpath worn by the feet of Indian hunters, and still occasionally trodden by the white man, probably as old as the race of man here. And the same trail may be found encircling all our ponds.

Near the sandy eastern shore, where the water is eight or ten feet deep, I have seen from a boat, in calm weather, broad circular heaps of small stones on the bottom, half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot or more in height, where all around was bare sand, - probably the work of some kind of fish.

The French call dragon-flies “demoiselles.”


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 9, 1852

Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus. See October 20, 1852 ("Tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed. ");  November 2, 1853 ("I might put by themselves the November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf."); November 3, 1853 ("To-day I see yarrow, very bright "); November 3, 1853 ("I saw a very fresh A. undulatus this afternoon."); November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom"); November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet."); November 12, 1853 ("Tansy is very fresh still in some places"); November 14, 1852 ("Still yarrow, tall buttercup, and tansy."); November 18, 1852 ("Yarrow and tansy still. These are cold, gray days."); November 18, 1855 ("Tansy still shows its yellow disks, but yarrow is particularly fresh and perfect, cold and chaste, with its pretty little dry-looking rounded white petals and green leaves."); November 22, 1853 ("Yarrow is particularly fresh and innocent"); November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse").  See also  December 6, 1852 ("Tansy still fresh."); December 12, 1852 ("Tansy still fresh yellow by the Corner Bridge."); December 19, 1859 ("Yarrow too is full of seed now")

Fore part of November time for walnutting. See October 27, 1857 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts"); October 28, 1852 ("The boys are gathering walnuts."); November 20, 1858 ("When walnut husks have fairly opened, showing the white shells within, — the trees being either quite bare or with a few withered leaves at present, — a slight jar with the foot on the limbs causes them to rattle down in a perfect shower, and on bare, grass-grown pasture ground it is very easy picking them up."); December 5, 1856 ("There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. It would be easier gathering them now than ever. “); December 10, 1856 ("Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. It has not been better picking this season there. They lie on the snow, or rather sunk an inch or two into it. And some trees hang quite full.")

 The footpath worn by the feet of Indian hunters. See February 16, 1854 ("That Indian trail on the hillside about Walden is revealed with remarkable distinctness to me standing on the middle of the pond, by the slight snow which had lodged on it forming a clear white line unobscured by weeds and twigs.”) See  also  Walden, The Ponds ("I have been surprised to detect encircling the pond, even where a thick wood has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow shelf-like path in the steep hill side, alternately rising and falling, approaching and receding from the water's edge, as old probably as the race of man here, worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from time to time unwittingly trodden by the present occupants of the land. This is particularly distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond in winter, just after a light snow has fallen, appearing as a clear undulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a quarter of a mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly distinguishable close at hand. The snow reprints it, as it were, in clear white type alto-relievo.")

I love very well this cloudy afternoon.

October 12

October 12, 2018

Sunday.

Yesterday afternoon, saw by the brook-side above Emerson's the dwarf primrose in blossom, the Norway cinquefoil and fall dandelions which are now drying up, the houstonia, buttercups, small goldenrods, and various asters, more or less purplish.

The seeds of the bidens,-without florets, beggar-ticks, with four-barbed awns like hay-hooks, now adhere to your clothes, so that you are all bristling with them. Certainly they adhere to nothing so readily as to woolen cloth, as if in the creation of them the invention of woolen clothing by man had been foreseen.

How tenacious of its purpose to spread and plant its race. By all methods nature secures this end, whether by the balloon, or parachute, or hook, or barbed spear like this, or mere lightness which the winds can waft.

What are those seeds, big as skunk-cabbage seeds, amid leafless stalks like pontederia in the brooks, now bending their stems ready to plant themselves at the bottom? 

The swamp-pink buds begin to show.

Blackbirds and larks are about, and the flicker or yellow-hammer, so beautifully spotted (in the hand), and the goldfinches.

I see a cow in the meadow with a new-dropped calf by her side.

The Anemone nemorosa in bloom and the Potentilla sarmentosa, or running cinquefoil, which springs in April, now again springing.

I love very well this cloudy afternoon, 

so sober and favorable to reflection

 after so many bright ones.

What if the clouds shut out the heavens, 

provided they concentrate my thoughts 

and make a more celestial heaven below! 

I hear the crickets plainer; 

I wander less in my thoughts, 

am less dissipated; 

am aware how shallow 

was the current of my thoughts before.

Deep streams are dark, 

as if there were a cloud in their sky; 

shallow ones are bright and sparkling, 

reflecting the sun from their bottoms.

The very wind on my cheek 

seems more fraught with meaning.

Many maples around the edges of the meadows are now quite bare, like smoke.

I seem to be more constantly merged in nature; my intellectual life is more obedient to nature than formerly, but perchance less obedient to spirit. I have less memorable seasons. I exact less of myself. I am getting used to my meanness, getting to accept my low estate. O if I could be discontented with myself. If I could feel anguish at each descent.

The sweet-fern is losing its leaves.

I see where a field of oats has been cradled, by the railroad, — alternate white and dark green stripes, the width of a swath, running across the field.

I find it arises from the stubble being bent a particular way by the cradle, as the cradler advanced, and accordingly reflecting the light but one way, and if I look over the field from the other side, the first swath will be dark and the latter white.

Minott shells all his corn by hand. He has got a boxful ready for the mill.  He will not winnow it, for he says the chaff (? ) makes it lie loose and dry faster.

He tells me that Jacob Baker, who raises as fair corn as any body, gives all the corn of his own raising to his stock, and buys the flat yellow corn of the South for bread; and yet the Northern corn is worth the most per bushel.

Minott did not like this kind of farming any better than I. Baker also buys a great quantity of “shorts” below for his cows, to make more milk.

He remembers when a Prescott, who lived where E. Hosmer does, used to let his hogs run in the woods in the fall, and they grew quite fat on the acorns, etc., they found, but now there are few nuts, and it is against the law.

He tells me of places in the woods which to his eyes are unchanged since he was a boy, as natural as life.  He tells me, then, that in some respects he is still a boy.

And yet the gray squirrels were ten then to one now.

But for the most part, he says, the world is turned upside down.

P. M. – To Cliffs.

I hear Lincoln bell tolling for church.

At first I thought of the telegraph harp.

Heard at a distance, the sound of a bell acquires a certain vibratory hum, as it were from the air through which it passes, like a harp.

All music is a harp music at length, as if the atmosphere were full of strings vibrating to this music.

It is not the mere sound of the bell, but the humming in the air, that enchants me, just [as the] azure tint which much air or distance imparts delights the eye.

It is not so much the object, as the object clothed with an azure veil.

All sound heard at a great distance thus tends to produce the same music, vibrating the strings of the universal lyre.

There comes to me a melody which the air has strained, which has conversed with every leaf and needle of the woods.

It is by no means the sound of the bell as heard near at hand, and which at this distance I can plainly distinguish, but its vibrating echoes, that portion of the sound which the elements take up and modulate,-a sound which is very much modified, sifted, and refined before it reaches my ear.

The echo is to some extent an independent sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of my voice, but it is in some measure the voice of the wood.

A cloudy, misty day with rain more or less steady. This gentle rain is fast loosening the leaves, — I see them filling the air at the least puff, — and it is also flattening down the layer which has already fallen.

The pines on Fair Haven have shed nearly all their leaves.

Butter-and-eggs still blooms.

Barrels of apples lie under the trees.

The Smiths have carried their last load of peaches to market.

To-day no part of the heavens is so clear and bright as Fair Haven Pond and the river.

Though the air [is] quite misty, yet the island wood is distinctly reflected.

Ever and anon I see the mist thickening in the southwest and concealing trees which were before seen, and revealing the direction and limits of the valleys, precursor of harder rain which soon passes again.

Minott calls the stake-driver “belcher-squelcher.” Says he has seen them when making the noise.  They go slug-toot, slug-toot, slug-toot.

Told me of his hunting gray squirrels with old Colonel Brooks's hound. How the latter came into the yard one day, and he spoke to him, patted him, went into the house, took down his gun marked London, thought he would go a-squirrel-hunting. Went over among the ledges, away from Brooks's, for Tige had a dreadful strong voice and could be heard as far as a cannon, and he was plaguy afraid Brooks would hear him. How Tige treed them on the oaks on the plain below the Cliffs. He could tell by his bark when he had treed one; he never told a lie.  And so he got six or seven.

How Tige told him from a distance that he had got one, but when he came up he could see nothing; but still he knew that Tige never told a lie, and at length he saw his head, in a crotch high up in the top of a very tall oak, and though he didn't expect to get him, he knocked him over.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 12, 1851

The seeds of the bidens,-without florets, beggar-ticks, with four-barbed awns like hay-hooks, now adhere to your clothes. See September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside."); October 20, 1858 ("Bidens or beggar’s-ticks adhere to your clothes shot into you by myriads of unnoticed foes"); October 23, 1853 ("I find my clothes all bristling as with a chevaux-de-frise of beggar-ticks, which hold on for many days. . . . In an instant a thousand seeds of the bidens fastened themselves firmly to my clothes, and I carried them for miles, planting one here and another there.")

Certainly they adhere to nothing so readily as to woolen cloth, as if in the creation of them the invention of woolen clothing by man had been foreseen. See September 29, 1856 ("How surely the desmodium, growing on some rough cliff-side, or the bidens, on the edge of a pool, prophesy the coming of the traveller, brute or human, that will transport their seeds on his coat! ")

I love very well this cloudy afternoon, so sober and favorable to reflection. See September 21, 1851 ("Moonlight is peculiarly favorable to reflection."); August 4, 1852("The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this");  April 4, 1853 ("We are all compact, and our thoughts collected. We walk under the clouds and mists as under a roof. One's thoughts run in a different channel from usual.")  August 7, 1853 (" It is worth the while to walk in wet weather;. . .The stillness and the shade enable you to collect and concentrate your thoughts"); November 7, 1855 ("I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon . . . The view is contracted by the misty rain, the water is perfectly smooth, and the stillness is favorable to reflection.")

The Norway cinquefoil. See August 30, 1851 ("I perceive in the Norway cinquefoil (Potentilla Norvegica), now nearly out of blossom, that the alternate five leaves of the calyx are closing over the seeds to protect them. There is one door closed, of the closing year.")

Many maples around the edges of the meadows are now quite bare, like smoke. See October 10, 1851 ("Some maples which a week ago were a mass of yellow foliage are now a fine gray smoke, as it were, and their leaves cover the ground."); October 13, 1857 (“Maple fires are burnt out generally, and they have fairly begun to fall and look smoky in the swamps.”); October 13, 1852 ("Many maples have lost all their leaves and are shrunk all at once to handsome clean gray wisps on the edge of the meadows. Crowded together at a distance they look like smoke.”); October 13, 1855 ("The maples now stand like smoke along the meadows"); October 18, 1853 ("The red maples have been bare a good while. In the sun and this clear air, their bare ashy branches even sparkle like silver. "); October 18, 1855 ("The maple swamps, bare of leaves, here and there about the meadow, look like smoke blown along the edge of the woods."); October 18, 1858  ("I am struck by the magical change which has taken place in the red maple swamps . . . like the smoke that is seen where a blaze is extinguished")

I hear Lincoln bell tolling for church. . . . Heard at a distance, the sound of a bell acquires a certain vibratory hum .. the voice of the wood. See January 2, 1842 ("The ringing of the church bell is a much more melodious sound than any that is heard within the church."); May 3, 1852 ("There is a grand, rich, musical echo trembling on the air long after the clock has ceased to strike, . . . filling the air with a trembling music like a flower of sound"); April 5, 1855 ("It being Fast-Day, we on the water hear the loud and musical sound of bells ringing for church in the surrounding towns."); April 15, 1855 ("The sound of church bells . . ., sounds very sweet to us on the water this still day") and  Walden ("Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood"). See also October 14, 1857 ("The reflection is never a true copy or repetition of its substance, but a new composition, and this may be the source of its novelty and attractiveness, and of this nature, too, may be the charm of an echo.")

https://tinyurl.com/HDT511012

One milkweed with faith in its seeds.

September 24

Returning over the causeway from Flint's Pond the other evening (22d ), just at sunset, I observed that while the west was of a bright golden color under a bank of clouds, — the sun just setting, — and not a tinge of red was yet visible there, there was a distinct purple tinge in the nearer atmosphere, so that Annursnack Hill, seen through it, had an exceedingly rich empurpled look.

It is rare that we perceive this purple tint in the air, telling of the juice of the wild grape and poke-berries. The empurpled hills! Methinks I have only noticed this in cooler weather.

Last night was exceedingly dark. I could not see the sidewalk in the street, but only felt it with my feet. I was obliged to whistle to warn travellers of my nearness, and then I would suddenly find myself abreast of them without having seen anything or heard their footsteps.

It was cloudy and rainy weather combined with the absence of the moon. So dark a night that, if a farmer who had come in a-shopping had spent but an hour after sunset in some shop, he might find himself a prisoner in the village for the night.

Thick darkness.

8 A. M. — To Lee's Bridge via Conantum.

It is a cool and windy morning, and I have donned a thick coat for a walk.

The wind is from the north, so that the telegraph harp does not sound where I cross.

This windy autumnal weather is very exciting and bracing, clear and cold, after the rain of yesterday, it having cleared off in the night.

I see a small hawk, a pigeon (?) hawk, over the Depot Field, which can hardly fly against the wind.

At Hubbard's Grove the wind roars loudly in the woods.

Grapes are ripe and already shrivelled by frost; barberries also.

It is cattle show day at Lowell.

Yesterday's wind and rain has strewn the ground with leaves, especially under the apple trees. Rain coming after frost seems to loosen the hold of the leaves, making them rot off.

Saw a woodchuck disappearing in his hole.

The river washes up-stream before the wind, with white streaks of foam on its dark surface, diagonally to its course, showing the direction of the wind. Its surface, reflecting the sun, is dazzlingly bright.

The outlines of the hills are remarkably distinct and firm, and their surfaces bare and hard, not clothed with a thick air.

I notice one red tree, a red maple, against the green woodside in Conant's meadow. It is a far brighter red than the blossoms of any tree in summer and more conspicuous.

The huckleberry bushes on Conantum are all turned red.

September 24, 2021

What can be handsomer for a picture than our river scenery now? Take this view from the first Conantum Cliff:

• First this smoothly shorn meadow on the west side of the stream, with all the swaths distinct, sprinkled with apple trees casting heavy shadows black as ink, such as can be seen only in this clear air, this strong light, one cow wandering restlessly about in it and lowing; 
• then the blue river, scarcely darker than and not to be distinguished from the sky, its waves driven southward, or up-stream, by the wind, making it appear to flow that way, bordered by willows and button-bushes; 
• then the narrow meadow beyond, with varied lights and shades from its waving grass, which for some reason has not been cut this year, though so dry, now at length each grass-blade bending south before the wintry blast, as if bending for aid in that direction; 
• then the hill rising sixty feet to a terrace-like plain covered with shrub oaks, maples, etc., now variously tinted, clad all in a livery of gay colors, every bush a feather in its cap; and
•  further in the rear the wood crowned Cliff some two hundred feet high, where gray rocks here and there project from amidst the bushes, with its orchard on the slope; 
• and to the right of the Cliff the distant Lincoln hills in the horizon.

The landscape so handsomely colored, the air so clear and wholesome; and the surface of the earth is so pleasingly varied, that it seems rarely fitted for the abode of man.

In Cohush Swamp the sumach leaves have turned a very deep red, but have not lost their fragrance. I notice wild apples growing luxuriantly in the midst of the swamp, rising red over the colored, painted leaves of the sumach, and reminding me that they were ripened and colored by the same influences, some green, some yellow, some red, like the leaves.

Fell in with a man whose breath smelled of spirit which he had drunk. How could I but feel that it was his own spirit that I smelt? 

Behind Miles's, Darius Miles's, that was, I asked an Irishman how many potatoes he could dig in a day, wishing to know how well they yielded. “Well, I don't keep any account,” he answered; “I scratch away, and let the day's work praise itself.” Aye, there's the difference between the Irish man and the Yankee; the Yankee keeps an account. The simple honesty of the Irish pleases me.

A sparrow hawk, hardly so big as a nighthawk, flew over high above my head, – a pretty little graceful fellow, too small and delicate to be rapacious.

Found a grove of young sugar maples (Acer saccharinum ) behind what was Miles's. How silently and yet startlingly the existence of these sugar maples was revealed to me, which I had not thought grew in my immediate neighborhood, — when first I perceived the entire edges of its leaves and their obtuse sinuses.

Such near hills as Nobscot and Nashoba have lost all their azure in this clear air and plainly belong to earth. Give me clearness nevertheless, though my heavens be moved further off to pay for it.

I perceive from the hill behind Lee's that much of the river meadows is not cut, though they have been very dry. The sun-sparkle on the river is dazzlingly bright in this atmosphere, as it has not been, perchance, for many a month.

It is so cold I am glad to sit behind the wall.

Still the great bidens blooms by the causeway side beyond the bridge.

At Clematis Brook I perceive that the pods or follicles of the Asclepias Syriaca now point upward. Did they before all point down? Have they turned up? They are already bursting.

I release some seeds with the long, fine silk attached. The fine threads fly apart at once, open with a spring, and then ray themselves out into a hemispherical form, each thread freeing itself from its neighbor and all reflecting prismatic or rainbow tints. The seeds, besides, are furnished with wings, which plainly keep them steady and prevent their whirling round. I let one go, and it rises slowly and uncertainly at first, now driven this way, then that, by currents which I cannot perceive, and I fear it will make shipwreck against the neighboring wood; but no, as it approaches it, it surely rises above it, and then, feeling the strong north wind, it is borne off rapidly in the opposite direction, ever rising higher and higher and tossing and heaved about with every fluctuation of the air, till, at a hundred feet above the earth and fifty rods off, steering south, I lose sight of it.

How many myriads go sailing away at this season, high over hill and meadow and river, on various tacks until the wind lulls, to plant their race in new localities, who can tell how many miles distant! And for this end these silken streamers have been perfecting all summer, snugly packed in this light chest, — a perfect adaptation to this end, a prophecy not only of the fall but of future springs.

Who could believe in prophecies of Daniel or of Miller that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds?

On Mt. Misery some very rich yellow leaves — clear yellow — of the Populus grandidentata, which still love to wag, and tremble in my hands. Also canoe birches there.

The river and pond from the side of the sun look comparatively dark.

As I look over the country westward and northwestward, the prospect looks already bleak and wintry. The surface of the earth between the forests is no longer green, but russet and hoary. You see distinctly eight or ten miles the russet earth and even houses, and then its outline is distinctly traced against the further blue mountains, thirty or thirty-five miles distant. You see distinctly perhaps to the height of land between the Nashua and Concord, and then the convexity of the earth conceals the further hills, though high, and your vision leaps a broad valley at once to the mountains.

Get home at noon.

At sundown the wind has all gone down.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 24, 1851

 I observed that while the west was of a bright golden color under a bank of clouds, — the sun just setting, — and not a tinge of red was yet visible there, there was a distinct purple tinge in the nearer atmosphere, so that Annursnack Hill, seen through it, had an exceedingly rich empurpled look. See October 19, 1858 ("The sun just ready to set, I notice that its light on my note-book is quite rosy or purple")

Last night was exceedingly dark. I could not see the sidewalk in the street, but only felt it with my feet. I was obliged to whistle to warn travellers of my nearness. See September 12, 1860 ("A dark and stormy night . . . Where the fence is not painted white I can see nothing, and go whistling for fear I run against some one. . . .You walk with your hands out to feel the fences and trees"); September 18, 1857 ("It was exceedingly dark. I met two persons within a mile, and they were obliged to call out from a rod distant lest we should run against each other. ")

I notice one red tree, a red maple, against the green woodside in Conant's meadow. See September 24, 1855 ("the maples are but just beginning to blush") See also September 25, 1857 ("The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence"); September 25, 1857 ("The red maple has fairly begun to blush in some places by the river. I see one, by the canal behind Barrett’s mill, all aglow against the sun."); September 25, 1857 ("A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar."); September 26, 1854 ("Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off."); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."

At Clematis Brook I perceive that the pods or follicles of the Asclepias Syriaca now point upward. Did they before all point down? Have they turned up? See August 24, 1851 ("The pods of the Asclepias pulchra stand up pointedly like slender vases on a salver, an open salver truly! Those of the Asclepias Syriaca hang down.")

The fine threads fly apart at once, open with a spring, and then ray themselves out into a hemispherical form, each thread freeing itself from its neighbor. . . .a prophecy not only of the fall but of future springs. See September 10, 1860 ("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."); October 23, 1852 ("The milkweed (Syriaca) now rapidly discounting. The lanceolate pods having opened, the seeds spring out on the least jar, or when dried by the sun, and form a little fluctuating white silky mass or tuft, each held by the extremities of the fine threads, until a stronger puff of wind sets them free. It is a pleasant sight to see it dispersing its seeds")

The further blue mountains, thirty or thirty-five miles distant. See June 3, 1850 ("The landscape is a vast amphitheatre rising to its rim in the horizon."); September 12, 1851 ("It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day"); August 2, 1852 ("In many moods it is cheering to look across hence to that blue rim of the earth,"); March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'); September 27, 1853 ("From our native hills we look out easily to the far blue mountains, which seem to preside over them.");October 22, 1857 ("But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it? "); November 22, 1860 ("Simply to see to a distant horizon through a clear air, - the fine outline of a distant hill or a blue mountaintop through some new vista, - this is wealth enough for one afternoon.")