The St. John's-worts begin to bloom..

July 13. 

July 13, 2020

Purslane, probably to-day.

Chenopodium album.

Pontederias in prime.

Purple bladderwort (Utricularia purpurea), not long, near Hollowell place, the buds the deepest-colored, the stems rather loosely leaved or branched, with whorls of five or six leaves.

On the hard, muddy shore opposite Dennis’s, in the meadow, Hypericum Sarothra in dense fields, also Canadense, both a day or two, also ilysanthes, sium with leaves a third of an inch wide, and the cardinal flower, probably the 11th.

Hypericum mutilum in the meadow, maybe a day or two.

Whorled bladderwort, for some time, even gone to seed; this, the purple, and the common now abundant amid the pads and rising above them.

Potamogeton compressus (?) immersed, with linear leaves. I see no flower.

I believe it is the radical leaves of the heart-leaf, — large, waved, transparent, — which in many places cover the bottom of the river where five or six feet deep, as with green paving-stones. Did not somebody mistake these for the radical leaves of the kalmiana lily?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1853

Hypericum Sarothra in dense fields, also Canadense, both a day or two, also Hypericum mutilum in the meadow, maybe a day or two. See  July 14, 1854 ("The red capsules of the Hypericum ellipticum, here and there. This one of the fall-ward phenomena in still rainy days."); July 15, 1856 ("Both small hypericums, Canadense and mutilum, apparently some days at least by Stow's ditch."); July 19, 1856 ("It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now."); July 25, 1856 ("Up river to see hypericums out."); July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening. . . . The pod of the ellipticum, when cut, smells like a bee."); August 19, 1856 ("The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like."); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”)  See also July 19, 1851 ("First came the St. John's-wort and now the goldenrod to admonish us. . . .Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Whorled bladderwort, the purple, and the common now abundant. .See  July 13, 1852 ("The pool by Walden is now quite yellow with the common utricularia (vulgaris).") See also August 3, 1856 ("The purple utricularia abundant "); August 5, 1854 ("I see very few whorled or common utricularias, but the purple ones are exceedingly abundant on both sides the river"); September 1, 1857 ("On the west side of Fair Haven Pond, an abundance of the Utricularia purpurea and of the whorled, etc., whose finely dissected leaves are a rich sight in the water")

Did not somebody mistake these for the radical leaves of the kalmiana lily?  See July 27, 1856 ("I am surprised to find kalmiana lilies scattered thinly all along the Assabet, a few small, commonly reddish pads in middle of river, but I see no flowers. It is their great bluish waved (some green) radical leaves which I had mistaken for those of the heart-leaf, the floating leaves being so small. . . .The radical leaves of the heart-leaf are very small and rather triangular.")

July 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.

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 traveller who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed

August 20

2 p. m. — To Lee's Bridge via Hubbard's Wood, Potter's field, Conantum, returning by Abel Minott's house, Clematis Brook, Baker's pine plain, and railroad.

 I hear a cricket in the Depot Field, walk a rod or two, and find the note proceeds from near a rock. Partly under a rock, between it and the roots of the grass, he lies concealed, — for I pull away the withered grass with my hands, — uttering his night-like creak, with a vibratory motion of his wings, and flattering himself that it is night, because he has shut out the day. He was a black fellow nearly an inch long, with two long, slender feelers. They plainly avoid the light and hide their heads in the grass. At any rate they regard this as the evening of the year. 

They are remarkably secret and unobserved, considering how much noise they make. Every milkman has heard them all his life; it is the sound that fills his ears as he drives along. But what one has ever got off his cart to go in search of one? I see smaller ones moving stealthily about, whose note I do not know. Who ever distinguished their various notes, which fill the crevices in each other's song? It would be a curious ear, indeed, that distinguished the species of the crickets which it heard, and traced even the earth-song home, each part to its particular performer. I am afraid to be so knowing. They are shy as birds, these little bodies. Those nearest me continually cease their song as I walk, so that the singers are always a rod distant, and I cannot easily detect one. It is difficult, moreover, to judge correctly whence the sound proceeds. 

Perhaps this wariness is necessary to save them from insectivorous birds, which would otherwise speedily find out so loud a singer. They are somewhat protected by the universalness of the sound, each one's song being merged and lost in the general concert, as if it were the creaking of earth's axle. They are very numerous in oats and other grain, which conceals them and yet affords a clear passage. I never knew any drought or sickness so to prevail as to quench the song of the crickets; it fails not in its season, night or day.

The Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco, meets me at every turn. At first I suspect some new bluish flower in the grass, but stooping see the inflated pods. Tasting one such herb convinces me that there are such things as drugs which may either kill or cure.[A farmer tells me that he knows when his horse has eaten it, be cause it makes him slobber badly.]

The Rhexia Virginica is a showy flower at present. 

How copious and precise the botanical language to describe the leaves, as well as the other parts of a plant! Botany is worth studying if only for the precision of its terms, — to learn the value of words and of system. It is wonderful how much pains has been taken to describe a flower's leaf, compared for instance with the care that is taken in describing a psychological fact. 

Suppose as much ingenuity (perhaps it would be needless) in making a language to express the sentiments! We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf in the field, or at least to distinguish it from each other, but not to describe a human character. With equally wonderful indistinctness and confusion we describe men. The precision and copiousness of botanical language applied to the description of moral qualities! 

The neottia, or ladies'-tresses, behind Garfield's house. 

The golden robin is now a rare bird to see. 

Here are the small, lively-tasting blackberries, so small they are not commonly eaten. 

The grasshoppers seem no drier than the grass.

In Lee's field are two kinds of plantain. Is the common one found there? 

The willow reach by Lee's Bridge has been stripped for powder. None escapes. This morning, hearing a cart, I looked out and saw George Dugan going by with a horse-load of his willow toward Acton powder-mills, which I had seen in piles by the turnpike. Every traveller has just as particular an errand which I might like wise chance to be privy to. 

Now that I am at the extremity of my walk, I see a threatening cloud blowing up from the south, which however, methinks, will not compel me to make haste. 

Apios tuberosa, or Glycine Apios, ground-nut. 

The prenanthes now takes the place of the lactucas, which are gone to seed. 

In the dry ditch, near Abel Minott's house that was, I see cardinal-flowers, with their red artillery, reminding me of soldiers, — red men, war, and bloodshed. Some are four and a half feet high. Thy sins shall be as scarlet. Is it my sins that I see ? It shows how far a little color can go; for the flower is not large, yet it makes itself seen from afar, and so answers the purpose for which it was colored completely. It is remarkable for its intensely brilliant scarlet color. You are slow to concede to it a high rank among flowers, but ever and anon, as you turn your eyes away, it dazzles you and you pluck it. 

Scutellaria lateriflora, side-flowering skullcap, here. 

This brook deserves to be called Clematis Brook (though that name is too often applied), for the clematis is very abundant, running over the alders and other bushes on its brink. Where the brook issues from the pond, the nightshade grows profusely, spreading five or six feet each way, with its red berries now ripe. It grows, too, at the upper end of the pond. But if it is the button-bush that grows in the now low water, it should rather be called the Button-Bush Pond. Now the tall rush is in its prime on the shore here, and the clematis abounds by this pond also. 

I came out by the leafy-columned elm under Mt. Misery, where the trees stood up one above another, higher and higher, immeasurably far to my imagination, as on the side of a New Hampshire mountain. . 

On the pitch pine plain, at first the pines are far apart, with a wiry grass between, and goldenrod and hardhack and St. John's-wort and blackberry vines, each tree merely keeping down the grass for a space about itself, meditating to make a forest floor; and here and there younger pines are springing up. Further in, you come to moss-covered patches, dry, deep white moss, or almost bare mould, half covered with pine needles. Thus begins the future forest floor.

 The sites of the shanties that once stood by the railroad in Lincoln when the Irish built it, the still remaining hollow square mounds of earth which formed their embankments, are to me instead of barrows and druidical monuments and other ruins. It is a sufficient antiquity to me since they were built, their material being earth. Now the Canada thistle and the mullein crown their tops. I see the stones which made their simple chimneys still left one upon another at one end, which were sur mounted with barrels to eke them out ; and clean boiled beef bones and old shoes are strewn about. Otherwise it is a clean ruin, and nothing is left but a mound, as in the graveyard. 

Sium lineare, a kind of water-parsnip, whose blossom resembles the Cicuta maculata. The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly reached the summit of their spikes.

A traveller who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 20, 1851

The song of the crickets fails not in its season, night or day. See August 20. 1858 (" the creak of the cricket sounds cool and steady"); August 18, 1856 (" I hear the steady (not intermittent) shrilling of apparently the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound. Hear it, but see it not. It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy,")

The Rhexia Virginica is a showy flower at present. 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.")

Botany is worth studying if only for the precision of its terms, — to learn the value of words and of system. See March 1, 1852 (" I can see that there is a certain advantage in these hard and precise terms, such as the lichenist uses"); January 15, 1853 ("Science suggests the value of mutual intelligence. I have long known this dust, but, as I did not know the name of it, i. e . what others called it, I therefore could not conveniently speak of it.");  August 29, 1858 ("With the knowledge of the name comes a distincter recognition and knowledge of the thing. . . . My knowledge now becomes communicable and grows by communication. I can now learn what others know about the same thing.")

In the dry ditch, near Abel Minott's house that was, I see cardinal-flowers, with their red artillery, reminding me of soldiers. See August 27, 1856 ("The cardinals in this ditch make a splendid show now, though they would have been much fresher and finer a week ago. . . . They look like slender plumes of soldiers advancing in a dense troop, . . .the most splendid show of cardinal flowers I ever saw.")

A traveller who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. Compare August 6, 1851 ("How often it happens that the traveller's principal distinction is that he is one who knows less about a country than a native! "); April 16, 1852 ("Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs"); September 21, 1856 ("I have within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange.")

Standing by Peter's well, the white maples by the bank of the river a mile off now give a rosaceous tinge to the edge of the meadow.

September 10.

Thursday. P. M. — To Cardinal Ditch and Peter’s.

Cardinal-flower, nearly done. 

Beach plum, almost ripe. 

Squash vines on the Great Fields, generally killed and blackened by frost (though not so much in our garden), revealing the yellow fruit, perhaps prematurely. 

Standing by Peter's well, the white maples by the bank of the river a mile off now give a rosaceous tinge to the edge of the meadow. 

I see lambkill ready to bloom a second time. Saw it out on the 20th; how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 10, 1857

Cardinal Ditch / Cardinal-flower, nearly done. See August 27, 1856 (“The cardinals in this ditch make a splendid show now”). Also September 14, 1856 (“The flowering of the ditches. ”)

Standing by Peter's well, the white maples by the bank of the river a mile off . . . See March 31, 1856 ("To Peter’s -- I see the scarlet tops of white maples nearly a mile off, down the river, the lusty shoots of last year.”); August 15, 1858 ("The smaller white maples are very generally turned a dull red, and their long row, seen against the fresh green of Ball’s Hill, is very surprising")' September 8, 1858 ("I perceive the dark-crimson leaves, quite crisp, of the white maple on the meadows, recently fallen.")  Compare April 28, 1855 ("The red maples, now in bloom, are quite handsome at a distance over the flooded meadow beyond Peter’s. The abundant wholesome gray of the trunks and stems beneath surmounted by the red or scarlet crescents.”); May 1, 1855 ("The maples of Potter’s Swamp, seen now nearly half a mile off against the russet or reddish hillside, are a very dull scarlet, like Spanish brown.”)

A rosaceous tinge

by the bank of the river –

maples a mile off.

There are many wild-looking berries about now.

August 27.

August 27, 2016

P. M. —To Clintonia Swamp and Cardinal Ditch.

Unusually cold last night.

Goodyera pubescens, rattlesnake-plantain, is apparently a little past its prime. It is very abundant on Clintonia Swamp hillside, quite erect, with its white spike eight to ten inches high on the sloping hillside, the lower half or more turning brown, but the beautifully reticulated leaves which pave the moist shady hillside about its base are the chief attraction. These oval leaves, perfectly smooth like velvet to the touch, about one inch long, have a broad white midrib and four to six longitudinal white veins, very prettily and thickly connected by other conspicuous white veins transversely and irregularly, all on a dark rich green ground.

Is it not the prettiest leaf that paves the forest floor? As a cultivated exotic it would attract great attention for its leaf. Many of the leaves are eaten. Is it by partridges? It is a leaf of firm texture, not apt to be partially eaten by insects or decayed, and does not soon wilt. So unsoiled and undecayed. It might be imitated on carpets and rugs. Some old withered stems of last year still stand.

On dry, open hillsides and fields the Spiranthes gracilis is very common of late, rising tall and slender, with its spiral of white flowers like a screw-thread at top; sometimes fifteen inches high.

There are, close by the former, the peculiar large dark blue indigo clintonia berries of irregular form and dark-spotted, in umbels of four or five on very brittle stems which break with a snap and on erectish stemlets or pedicels.

See no fringed gentian yet.

Veronica serpyllifolia again by Brister's Spring.

Krigia yesterday at Lee's Cliff, apparently again, though it may be uninterruptedly.

Tobacco-pipe still.

The rhexia greets me in bright patches on meadow banks.

Ludwigia alternifolia still. It is abundant in Cardinal Ditch, twenty rods from road.

Bidens frondosa, how long?

Hypericum Canadense and mutilum now pretty generally open at 4 P.M., thus late in the season, it being more moist and cooler.

The cardinals in this ditch make a splendid show now, though they would have been much fresher and finer a week ago. They nearly fill the ditch for thirty-five rods perfectly straight, about three feet high. I count at random ten in one square foot, and as they are two feet wide by thirty-five rods, there are four or five thousand at least, and maybe more. They look like slender plumes of soldiers advancing in a dense troop, and a few white (or rather pale-pink) ones are mingled with the scarlet. That is the most splendid show of cardinal flowers I ever saw. They are mostly gone to seed, i. e. the greater part of the spike. 

Mimulus there still common.

Near the clintonia berries, I found the Polygonatum pubescens berries on its handsome leafy stem recurved over the hillside, generally two slaty-blue (but darkgreen beneath the bloom) berries on an axillary peduncle three quarters of an inch long, hanging straight down; eight or nine such peduncles, dividing to two short pedicels at end; the berries successively smaller from below upwards, from three eighths of an inch diameter to hardly more than one eighth.

There are many wild-looking berries about now.

The Viburnum Lentago begin to show their handsome red cheeks, rather elliptic-shaped and mucronated, one cheek clear red with a purplish bloom, the other pale green, now. Among the handsomest of berries, one half inch long by three eighths by two eighths, being somewhat flattish.

Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull leadcolored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.

The large depressed globular hips of the moss rose begin to turn scarlet in low ground.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, August 27, 1856 

Is it not the prettiest leaf that paves the forest floor? See August 20, 1856 (“The hillside at Clintonia Swamp is in some parts quite shingled with the rattlesnake-plantain (Goodyera pubescens) leaves overlapping one another. The flower is now apparently in its prime. ”);  March 10, 1852 ("I see the reticulated leaves of the rattlesnake-plantain in the woods, quite fresh and green.”); June 12, 1853 ("The rattlesnake-plantain now surprises the walker amid the dry leaves on cool hillsides in the woods; of very simple form, but richly veined with longitudinal and transverse white veins. It looks like art.”) Also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Rattlesnake-Plantain

I see Hypericum Canadense and mutilum abundantly open at 4 p. m. See  August 15, 1859 ("Hypericum Canadense, Canadian St. John's-wort, distinguished by its red capsules."); August 17,1856 ("Hypericum Canadense well out at 2 p. m."); August 19, 1851 ("Now for the pretty red capsules or pods of the Hypericum Canadense");   August 19, 1856 ("I see Hypericum Canadense and mutilum abundantly open at 3 P. M.")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

The cardinals in this ditch make a splendid show now, though they would have been much fresher and finer a week ago. . . . They look like slender plumes of soldiers advancing in a dense troop, . . .the most splendid show of cardinal flowers I ever saw. Compare August 20, 1851 ("In the dry ditch, near Abel Minott's house that was, I see cardinal-flowers, with their red artillery, reminding me of soldiers, — red men, war, and bloodshed. Some are four and a half feet high. Thy sins shall be as scarlet. Is it my sins that I see ? It shows how far a little color can go; for the flower is not large, yet it makes itself seen from afar, and so answers the purpose for which it was colored completely. It is remarkable for its intensely brilliant scarlet color. You are slow to concede to it a high rank among flowers, but ever and anon, as you turn your eyes away, it dazzles you and you pluck it. ")

The rhexia greets me in bright patches on meadow banks  See August 28, 1859 ("The rhexia in Ebby Hubbard's field is considerably past prime, and it is its reddish chalices which show most at a distance now. I should have looked ten days ago. Still it is handsome with its large yellow anthers against clear purple petals. It grows there in large patches with hardhack") See also   A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Rhexia Virginica (meadow-beauty)

Near the clintonia berries, I found the Polygonatum pubescens berries on its handsome leafy stem . See June 12, 1852 ("Clintonia borealis  amid the Solomon's-seals in Hubbard's Grove Swamp. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Solomon's Seal

The Polygonatum pubescens berries . . . generally two slaty-blue (but darkgreen beneath the bloom) . . ..  See  August 21, 1853 ("The polygonatum berries have been a bluish-green some time.”)

The Viburnum Lentago begin to show their handsome red cheeks,. . . See August 21, 1853 ("The Viburnum Lentago berries are but just beginning to redden on one cheek.”); August 23, 1853 (".How handsome now the cymes of Viburnum Lentago berries, flattish with red cheeks!”); August 25, 1852 ("The fruit of the Viburnum Lentago is now very handsome, with its sessile cymes of large elliptical berries, green on one side and red with a purple bloom on the other or exposed side, not yet purple, blushing on one cheek.”);August 27, 1854 ("Some Viburnum Lentago berries, turned blue before fairly reddening.”)

See no fringed gentian yet. See September 12, 1854 ("I cannot find a trace of the fringed gentian.”); September 14, 1855”( I see no fringed gentian yet.”) and September 14, 1856 ("Fringed gentian well out (and some withered or frost-bitten ?), say a week, though there was none to be seen here August 27th.”)

Hips of the moss rose begin to turn scarlet . . .See August 27, 1852 ("Hips of the early roses are reddening.”); August 29, 1854 ("The moss rose hips will be quite ripe in a day or two.”)

There are many wild-looking berries about now.

tinyurl.com/wildberriesHDT

A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle.

July 27. 

Lobelia cardinalis, three or four days, with similar white glands (?) on edges of leaves as in L. spicata. Why is not this noticed? 

Cornus sericea about done.

As I paddle by Dodge's Brook, a great devil's-needle alights on my paddle, between my hands. It is about three inches long and three and a half in spread of wings, without spots, black and yellow, with green eyes (?). It keeps its place within a few inches of my eyes, while I was paddle some twenty-five rods against a strong wind, clinging closely. Perhaps it chose that place for coolness this hot day. 

To-day, as yesterday, it is more comfortable to be walking or paddling at 2 and 3 p. m., when there is wind, but at five the wind goes down and it is very still and suffocating. I afterward saw other great devil's-needles, the forward part of their bodies light-blue and very stout. 

The Stellaria longifolia is out of bloom and drying up. Vide some of this date pressed. 

At Bath Place, above, many yellow lily pads are left high and dry for a long time, in the zizania hollow, a foot or more above the dry sand, yet with very firm and healthy green leaves, almost the only ones not eaten by insects now. This river is quite low. 

The yellow lilies stand up seven or eight inches above the water, and, opposite to Merriam's, the rocks show their brown backs very thick (though some are concealed), like sheep and oxen lying down and chewing the cud in a meadow. I frequently run on to one — glad when it's the smooth side — and am tilted up this way or that, or spin round as on a central pivot. They bear the red or blue paint from many a boat, and here their moss has been rubbed off. 

Ceratophyllum is now apparently in bloom commonly, with its crimson-dotted involucre. 

I am surprised to find kalmiana lilies scattered thinly all along the Assabet, a few small, commonly reddish pads in middle of river, but I see no flowers. It is their great bluish waved (some green) radical leaves which I had mistaken for those of the heart-leaf, the floating leaves being so small. These and vallisneria washed up some time. The radical leaves of the heart-leaf are very small and rather triangular. 

I see, on a rock in midstream, a peetweet within a foot of a turtle, both eying me anxiously within two rods, but not minding each other. 

Zizania scarce out some days at least.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1856

A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle... See  June 13, 1854 ("I float homeward over water almost perfectly smooth, my sail so idle that I count ten devil's-needles resting along it at once."); July 17, 1854 ("I am surprised to see crossing my course in middle of Fair Haven Pond great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore.").

June 13. 

Floating homeward, I 

count devil's-needles at rest 

on my idle sail.

July 17.

Flying shore to shore, 

yellowish devil's-needles 

cross their Atlantic. 

July 27

A devil's-needle 

keeps its place on my paddle

against a strong wind.

July 27, 1856

Now at sundown

September 5.

P. M. — Up Assabet to Sam Barrett’s Pond. 

September 05, 2014

The river rising probably. The river weeds are now much decayed. Almost all pads but the white lily have disappeared, and they are thinned, and in midstream those dense beds of weeds are so much thinned (potamogeton, heart-leaf, sparganium, etc., etc.) as to give one the impression of the river having risen, though it is not more than six inches higher on account of the rain.

This is a fall phenomenon. The river weeds, becoming rotten, though many are still green, fall or are loosened, the water rises, the winds come, and they are drifted to the shore, and the water is cleared.

During the drought I used to see Sam Wheeler’s men carting hogsheads of water from the river to water his shrubbery. They drove into the river, and, naked all but a coat and hat, they dipped up the water with a pail. Though a shiftless, it looked like an agreeable, labor that hot weather. 

Barrett shows me some very handsome pear-shaped cranberries, not uncommon, which may be a permanent variety different from the common rounded ones.

Bathe at the swamp white oak, the water again warmer than I expected. I see much thistle-down without the seed floating on the river and a hummingbird about a cardinal-flower over the water’s edge.

Just this side the rock, the water near the shore and pads is quite white for twenty rods, as with a white sawdust, with the exuviae of small insects about an eighth of an inch long, mixed with scum and weeds.

I hear the tree-toad to-day. 

Now at sundown, a blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river before me, just above the rock. 

Hear locusts after sundown.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 5, 1854

Bathe at the swamp white oak, the water again warmer than I expected. See September 2, 1854 ("The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably."); September 6, 1854 ("The water is again warmer than I should have believed; "); September 12, 1854 ("Bathing I find it colder again than on the 2d, so that I stay in but a moment. I fear that it will not again be warm."); September 24, 1854 ("It is now too cold to bathe with comfort") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

This is a fall phenomenon . . . the water is cleared. See September 24, 1854 ("The water begins to be clear of weeds, and the fishes are exposed.")

I hear the tree-toad to-day. See June 14, 1853 ("Suddenly a tree-toad in the overhanging woods begins, and another answers, and another, with loud, ringing notes such as I never heard before, and in three minutes they are all silent again."); October 18, 1859 ("Saw a tree-toad on the ground . . .It is marked on the back with black, somewhat in the form of the hylodes.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree-toad

A blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river. .See August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me"); August 24, 1854 (" See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. At a distance before you, only the two waving lines appear, and you would not suspect the long neck and legs. "); September 9, 1858 ("This hot September afternoon all may be quiet amid the weeds, but the dipper, and the bittern, and the yellow legs, and the blue heron, and the rail are silently feeding there.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron

Hear locusts after sundown. See September 2, 1856 ("Frank Harding has caught a dog-day locust which lit on the bottom of my boat, in which he was sitting, and z-ed there"); September 7, 1858 ("It is an early September afternoon, melting warm and sunny. . .and ever and anon the hot z-ing of the locust is heard.")

September 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 5

Now at sundown

a blue heron flaps away 

from his perch on an oak 

over the river before me

just above the rock.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Now at sundown

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-540905

Walk to the view after sunset. we are treated to a light show of lightning. severe storms to northwest over Ottowa and Montreal, lighting the clouds, sometimes showing bolts, for perhaps an hour. A first quarter moon low in the south. we go down by the big house then bushwack to the fort. Windy. zphx September 5, 2014

Incessant flashes

lighting the edge of the cloud.

A rush of cool wind.

September 6, 1854

A day of sunny water.

August 8. 

August 8, 2014

This is a day of sunny water. As I walk along the bank of the river, I look down a rod and see distinctly the fishes and the bottom.

Lobelia cardinalis

The cardinals are in perfection, standing in dark recesses of the green shore, or in the open meadow. They are fluviatile, and stand along some river or brook, like myself.

The foliage of most trees is now not only most dense, but a very dark green. 

I see one large white maple crisped and tinged with a sort of rosaceous tinge, just above the Golden Horn. 

The surface is very glassy there.   

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 8, 1854

I look down a rod and see distinctly the fishes and the bottom.  See August 8, 1859 ("The river, now that it is so clear and sunny, is better than any aquarium."); see also July 30, 1856 ("The wonderful clearness of the water, enabling you to explore the river bottom and many of its secrets now...”); July 28, 1859 ("The season has now arrived when I begin to see further into the water"); July 27, 1860 ("The water has begun to be clear and sunny, revealing the fishes and countless minnows of all sizes and colors”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Season of Sunny Water

The cardinals are in perfection. See July 27, 1852 ("The cardinal-flower just opened, close to the water's edge, remarkable for its intense scarlet color, contrasting with the surrounding green."); August 6, 1851 ("I see cardinal-flowers, with their red artillery, reminding me of soldiers . . It is remarkable for its intensely brilliant scarlet color. You are slow to concede to it a high rank among flowers, but ever and anon, as you turn your eyes away, it dazzles you and you pluck it."); August 6, 1852 ("I love to follow up the course of the brook and see the cardinal-flowers. . . their brilliant scarlet the more interesting in this open, but dark, cellar-like wood,"); August 16, 1858 ("I am surprised to find that where of late years there have been so many cardinal-flowers, there are now very few. So much does a plant fluctuate from season to season.")

The foliage of most trees is now not only most dense, but a very dark green. See August 6, 1854 ("As I look westward up the stream, the oak, etc., on Ponkawtasset are of a very dark green, almost black, which, methinks, they have worn only since midsummer"

I see one large white maple crisped and tinged with a sort of rosaceous tinge. See August 6, 1854 ("I see some smaller white maples turned a dull red, — crimsonish, — a slight blush on them. "); August 15, 1858 (“The smaller white maples are very generally turned a dull red, and their long row, seen against the fresh green of Ball’s Hill, is very surprising.”); August 22, 1856 (“I notice three or four clumps of white maples, at the swamp up the Assabet, which have turned as red (dull red) as ever they do, fairly put on their autumnal hue.”)

The surface is very glassy there. See June 11, 1854 (" A sheet of water . . . revealed by its reflections, a smooth, glassy mirror, reflecting the light sky and the dark and shady woods.") See also note to August 4, 1852 ("A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods is in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm at this season, when the air and water are perfectly still, but the sky still overcast.")

August 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 8

Along the river

a day of sunny water –

I see the fishes.

Perfect cardinals,

fluviatile like myself

standing on the shore.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A day of sunny water

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540808