A Book of the Seasons: Cinquefoil in Autumn

 I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

I am not ashamed to be contemporary with the Norway cinquefoil.

This plant acts not an obscure, but essential, part

in the revolution of the seasons.

August 30, 1851

August 17.  Cow-wheat and indigo-weed still in bloom by the dry wood-path-side, and Norway cinquefoil.   August 17, 1851

August 25.  Silvery cinquefoil now begins to show itself commonly again. Perhaps it is owing to the rain, spring like, which we have in August. August 25, 1856

August 28.  Potentilla Norvegica again. August 28, 1856

August 30.  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. Thus all the Norway cinquefoils in the world have curled back their calyx leaves, their warm cloaks, when now their flowering season was past, over their progeny, from the time they were created! It is as good as if I saw the great globe go round. I am not ashamed to be contemporary with the Norway cinquefoil. This plant acts not an obscure, but essential, part in the revolution of the seasons. May I perform my part as well!  August 30, 1851

September 1.  Methinks the silvery cinquefoil is of late much more abundant. September 1, 1853

September 19. I see the oxalis and the tree primrose and the Norway cinquefoil and the prenanthes and the Epilobium coloratum and the cardinal-flower and the small hypericum and yarrow, and I think it is the Ranunculus repens, between Ripley Hill and river, with spotted leaves lingering still. September 19, 1852

September 23.  [Near Bangor]  Saw Aster undulatus, Solidago nemoralis, fragrant everlasting, silvery cinquefoil, small white birch, Lobelia inflata, both kinds of primrose, low cudweed, lactuca, Polygonum cilinode (apparently out of bloom), yellow oxalis. September 23, 1853

September 28. This is the commencement, then, of the second spring. Violets, Potentilla Canadensis, lambkill, wild rose, yellow lily, etc., etc., begin again  September 28, 1852

October 2.  There is a more or less general reddening of the leaves at this season, down to the cinquefoil and mouse-ear, sorrel and strawberry under our feet. October 2, 1857

October 9.  The hoary cinquefoil in blossom. October 9, 1851

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. 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 Anemone nemorosa in bloom and the Potentilla sarmentosa, or running cinquefoil, which springs in April, now again springing. October 12, 1851

October 21.  Silvery cinquefoil, hedge-mustard, and clover.  October 21, 1852

November 1.  The cinquefoil on Conantum. November 1, 1851

November 3.  To-day I see yarrow, very bright; red clover; autumnal dandelion; the silvery potentilla, and one Canadensis and the Norvegica.  November 3, 1853

November 6. Still the Canada snapdragon, yarrow, autumnal dandelion, tansy, shepherd's-purse, silvery cinquefoil, witch-hazel. November 6, 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 19.  There are also many of the common cinquefoil with its leaves five inches asunder, dangling down five or six feet over the same rock.  November 19, 1857

November 23. 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.   November 23, 1852

December 23.  At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, mullein, columbine, veronica, thyme-leaved sandwort, spleenwort, strawberry, buttercup, radical johnswort, mouse-ear, radical pinweeds, cinquefoils, checkerberry, Wintergreen, thistles, catnip, Turritis stricta especially fresh and bright.  December 23, 1855

December 31.   Potentilla Norvegica appears to have some sound seed in its closed heads.  December 31, 1859

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Cinquefoil in Autumn

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 ©  2009-2023

https://tinyurl.com/HDTcinque

Over the highest hill behind Bangor.

September 23

Friday. Walked down the riverside this forenoon to the hill where they were using a steamshovel at the new railroad cut, and thence to a hill three quarters of a mile further. 

Saw Aster undulatus, Solidago nemoralis, fragrant everlasting, silvery cinquefoil, small white birch, Lobelia inflata, both kinds of primrose, low cudweed, lactuca, Polygonum cilinode (apparently out of bloom), yellow oxalis.

I returned across the fields behind the town, and over the highest hill behind Bangor, and up the Kenduskieg, from which I saw the Ebeeme Mountains in the northwest and hills we had come by. 

The arbor-vitæ is the prevailing shrub.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1853

Friday. Walked down the riverside. See September 21, 1853 ("Reached Bangor at dark."); September 22, 1853 ("Behind one house, an Indian had nearly finished one canoe and was just beginning another, outdoors")

Aster undulatus. See September 20, 1852 ("Aster undulatus, or variable aster, with a large head of middle-sized blue flowers."); October 6, 1858 ("the Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path. "); October 19, 1856 ("The A. undulatus is, perhaps, the only [aster] of which you can find a respectable specimen. I see one so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it."); October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides.");November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet.")

Solidago nemoralis. See note to September 12, 1859 ("One dense mass of the bright golden recurved wands of the Solidago nemoralis, waving in the wind and turning upward to the light hundreds, if not a thousand, flowerets each.")

Fragrant everlasting, See August 11, 1858 (“I smell the fragrant everlasting concealed in the higher grass and weeds there, some distance off.”); September 19, 1852 ("The fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound")

I saw the Ebeeme Mountains in the northwest and hills we had come by. See Book for the Children of Maine, 19 (1831)   ("The Ebeeme mountains nearly south of Ktaadn, are about four thousand feet high.")

First of all a man must see, before he can say.

November 1.

November 1, 2021

It is a rare qualification to be able to state a fact simply and adequately, to digest some experience cleanly, to say “yes” and “no” with authority, to make a square edge, to conceive and suffer the truth to pass through us living and intact, even as a waterfowl an eel, as it flies over the meadows, thus stocking new waters.

First of all a man must see, before he can say.

Statements are made but partially. Things are said with reference to certain conventions or existing institutions, not absolutely.

A fact truly and absolutely stated is taken out of the region of common sense and acquires a mythologic or universal significance. Say it and have done with it. Express it without expressing yourself.  See not with the eye of science, which is barren, nor of youthful poetry, which is impotent. But taste the world and digest it.

It would seem as if things got said but rarely and by chance.

As you see, so at length will you say.

When facts are seen superficially, they are seen as they lie in relation to certain institutions, perchance.

But I would have them expressed as more deeply seen, with deeper references; so that the hearer or reader cannot recognize them or apprehend their significance from the platform of common life, but it will be necessary that he be in a sense translated in order to understand them; when the truth respecting his things shall naturally exhale from a man like the odor of the muskrat from the coat of the trapper.

At first blush a man is not capable of reporting truth; he must be drenched and saturated with it first.

What was enthusiasm in the young man must become temperament in the mature man. Without excitement, heat, or passion, he will survey the world which excited the youth and threw him off his balance.

As all things are significant, so all words should be significant.

It is a fault which attaches to the speaker, to speak flippantly or superficially of anything.

Of what use are words which do not move the hearer, are not oracular and fateful? 

A style in which the matter is all in all, and the manner nothing at all.

In your thoughts no more than in your walks do you meet men.

In moods I find such privacy as in dismal swamps and on mountain-tops.

Man recognizes laws little enforced, and he condescends to obey them. In the moment that he feels his superiority to them as compulsatory, he, as it were, courteously reënacts them but to obey them.

This on my way to Conantum, 2.30 P. M. 

November 1, 2018

It is a bright, clear, warm November day. I feel blessed. I love my life. I warm toward all nature.

The woods are now much more open than when I last observed them; the leaves have fallen, and they let in light, and I see the sky through them as through a crow's wing in every direction.

For the most part only the pines and oaks (white?) retain their leaves. At a distance, accordingly, the forest is green and reddish.

The crickets now sound faintly and from very deep in the sod.

Minott says that G. M. Barrett told him that Amos Baker told him that during Concord Fight he went over behind the hill to the old Whittaker place (Sam Buttrick's) and stayed. Yet he was described as the only survivor of Concord Fight. Received a pension for running away? 

Fall dandelions look bright still.

The grass has got a new greenness in spots.

At this season there are stranger sparrows or finches about.

The skunk-cabbage is already pushing up again.

The alders have lost their leaves, and the willows except a few shrivelled ones.

It is a remarkable day for fine gossamer cobwebs. Here in the causeway, as I walk toward the sun, I perceive that the air is full of them streaming from off the willows and spanning the road, all stretching across the road, and yet I cannot see them in any other direction, and feel not one. It looks as if the birds would be incommoded. They have the effect of a shimmer in the air. This shimmer, moving along them as they are waved by the wind, gives the effect of a drifting storm of light. It is more like a fine snow-storm which drifts athwart your path than anything else. What is the peculiar condition of the atmosphere, to call forth this activity? If there were no sunshine, I should never find out that they existed, I should not know that I was bursting a myriad barriers. Though you break them with your person, you feel not one.
Why should this day be so distinguished? 

The rain of night before last has raised the river at least two feet, and the meadows wear a late-fall look. The naked and weedy stems of the button-bush are suddenly submerged; you no longer look for pickerel from the bridges. The shallow and shrunken shore is also submerged.

I see so far and distinctly, my eyes seem to slide in this clear air.

The river is peculiarly sky-blue to-day, not dark as usual.

It is all in the air.

The cinquefoil on Conantum.

Counted one hundred and twenty five crows in one straggling flock moving westward.

The red shrub oak leaves abide on the hills.

The witch-hazels have mostly lost their blossoms, perhaps on account of the snow.

The ground wears its red carpet under the pines.

The pitch pines show new buds at the end of their plumes. How long this?

Saw a canoe birch by road beyond the Abel Minott house; distinguished it thirty rods off by the chalky whiteness of its limbs.
It is of a more unspotted, transparent, and perhaps pinkish white than the common, has considerable branches as well as white ones, and its branches do not droop and curl downward like that. There will be some loose curls of bark about it.

The common birch is finely branched and has frequently a snarly head; the former is a more open and free-growing tree.

If at a distance you see the birch near its top forking into two or more white limbs, you may know it for a canoe birch. You can tell where it has grown after the wood has turned to mould by a small fragment of its bark still left,-if it divides readily.

The common birch is more covered with moss, has the aspect of having grown more slowly, and has many more branches.

I have heard of a man in Maine who copied the whole Bible on to birch bark.

It was so much easier than to write that sentence which the birch tree stands for.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 1, 1851

I feel blessed. I love my life. I warm toward all nature. See July 16, 1851 ("I love and worship myself with a love which absorbs my love for the world.");  August 15, 1851 ("May I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever invented.")

At first blush a man is not capable of reporting truth; he must be drenched and saturated with it first. See November 1, 1857 ("A higher truth, though only dimly hinted at, thrills us more than a lower expressed. ");  See also December 16, 1837("The fact will one day flower out into a truth.");June 19, 1852 (“Facts collected by a poet are set down at last as winged seeds of truth.”); February 18, 1852 ("I have a commonplace-book for facts and another for poetry, but I find it difficult always to preserve the vague distinction which I had in my mind, for the most interesting and beautiful facts are so much the more poetry and that is their success . . . I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant . . . I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all."); February 23. 1860 ("A fact stated barely is dry. It must be the vehicle of some humanity in order to interest us. It is like giving a man a stone when he asks you for bread.")

It is a rare qualification to be able to state a fact simply and adequately. See May 21, 1851 ("I think that the existence of man in nature is the divinest and most startling of all facts."); November 9, 1851 ("Facts should only be as the frame to my pictures; they should be material to the mythology which I am writing;. . .facts to tell who I am, and where I have been or what I have thought:. . . I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought -- with these I deal."); February 18, 1852 ("I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant, ... I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all."); June 19, 1852 (“Facts collected by a poet are set down at last as winged seeds of truth, samara?, tinged with his expectation.”); May 10, 1853 (“I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant”); May 6, 1854 (“There is no such thing as pure objective observation. Your observation, to be interesting, i. e. to be significant, must be subjective. ”); November 5, 1857 ("I think that the man of science makes this mistake, and the mass of mankind along with him: that you should coolly give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excites you as something independent on you, and not as it is related to you.”)

It is a remarkable day for fine gossamer cobwebs. See November 1, 1860 ("Gossamer on the withered grass is shimmering in the fields, and flocks of it are sailing in the air."). See also November 7, 1855 ("Looking west over Wheeler’s meadow, I see that there has been much gossamer on the grass, and it is now revealed by the dewy mist which has collected on it.”); November 15, 1858 ("Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November"); see also note to November 3, 1857 ("Looking westward now, at 4 P.M., I see against the sunlight, where the twigs of a maple and black birch intermingle, a little gossamer or fine cobwebs, but much more the twigs, especially of the birch, waving slightly, reflect the light like cobwebs. It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear. I cannot easily tell what is cobweb and what twig,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

Counted one hundred and twenty five crows in one straggling flock moving westward. See November 1, 1853 ("I notice crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.") See also October 20, 1859 ("I see a large and very straggling flock of crows fly southwest from over the hill behind Bull's and contending with the strong and cold northwest wind. This is the annual phenomenon. They are on their migrations."); October 29, 1855 ("I see and count about a hundred crows advancing in a great rambling flock from the southeast and crossing the river on high, and cawing.");  October 28, 1860 ("See a very large flock of crows").Compare March 5, 1854 ("And crows, as I think, migrating northeasterly. They come in loose, straggling flocks, about twenty to each, commonly silent, a quarter to a half a mile apart, till four flocks have passed, perhaps more. Methinks I see them going southwest in the fall.") Also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The American Crow

November 1. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November 1

It is a bright clear

warm November day.

I feel blessed.

I love my life.

I warm toward all nature.

Gossamer cobwebs

shimmer in the air as a

drifting storm of light

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, First of all a man must see, before he can say.

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-511101

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. (All the year is a spring.)

 October 9.

October 9, 2023

Heard two screech owls in the night.

Boiled a quart of acorns for breakfast, but found them not so palatable as raw, having acquired a bitterish taste, per chance from being boiled with the shells and skins; yet one would soon get accustomed to this.

The sound of foxhounds in the woods, heard now, at 9 A. M., in the village, reminds me of mild winter mornings.

2 P. M. - To Conantum.

In the maple woods the ground is strewn with new fallen leaves.

I hear the green locust again on the alders of the causeway, but he is turned a straw-color. The warm weather has revived them.

All the acorns on the same tree are not equally sweet. They appear to dry sweet.

From Conantum I see them getting hay from the meadow below the Cliffs. It must have been quite dry when cut.

The black ash has lost its leaves, and the white here is dry and brownish yellow, not having turned mulberry.

I see half a dozen snakes in this walk, green and striped (one very young striped one), who appear to be out enjoying the sun. They appear to make the most of the last warm days of the year.

The hills and plain on the opposite side of the river are covered with deep warm red leaves of shrub oaks.

On Lee's hillside by the pond, the old leaves of some pitch pines are almost of a golden-yellow hue, seen in the sunlight, a rich autumnal look. The green are, as it were, set in the yellow.

***

October 9, 2023

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside, while its broad yellow leaves are falling. Some bushes are completely bare of leaves, and leather-colored they strew the ground.

It is an extremely interesting plant, — October and November's child, and yet reminds me of the very earliest spring. Its blossoms smell like the spring, like the willow catkins; by their color as well as fragrance they belong to the saffron dawn of the year, suggesting amid all these signs of autumn, falling leaves and frost, that the life of Nature, by which she eternally flourishes, is untouched.

It stands here in the shadow on the side of the hill, while the sunlight from over the top of the hill lights up its topmost sprays and yellow blossoms. Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other.

I lie on my back with joy under its boughs. 

While its leaves fall, its 

blossoms spring. The autumn, then, 

is indeed a spring.

All the year is a spring.

I see two blackbirds high overhead, going south, but I am going north in my thought with these hazel blossoms.  It is a faery place.

This is a part of the immortality of the soul.

When I was thinking that it bloomed too late for bees or other insects to extract honey from its flowers, – that perchance they yielded no honey, – I saw a bee upon it. How important, then, to the bees this late-blossoming plant!

October 9, 2023

***

The circling hawk steers himself through the air, like the skater, without a visible motion.

The hoary cinquefoil in blossom.

A large sassafras tree behind Lee's, two feet diameter at ground.

As I return over the bridge, I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring.

I see a large sucker rise to the surface of the river.

I hear the crickets singing loudly in the walls as they have not done (so loudly) for some weeks, while the sun is going down shorn of his rays by the haze.

There is a thick bed of leaves in the road under Hubbard's elms.

This reminds me of Cato, as if the ancients made more use of nature.
He says, “ Stramenta si deerunt, frondem iligneam legito, eam substernito ovibus bubusque.” (If litter is wanting, gather the leaves of the holm oak and strew them under your sheep and oxen.) In another place he says, “Circum vias ulmos serito, et partim populos, uti frondem ovibus et bubus habeas.” 

I suppose they were getting that dry meadow grass for litter. There is little or no use made by us of the leaves of trees, not even for beds, unless it be sometimes to rake them up in the woods and cast into hog-pens or compost-heaps.

Cut a stout purple cane of pokeweed.

H. D, Thoreau, Journal, October 9, 1851

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. See October 4, 1858 ("Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime."); October 11, 1858 ("Witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves! "); October 13, 1859 ("I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom "); October 18, 1858 ("By the brook, witch-hazel, as an underwood, is in the height of its change, but elsewhere exposed large bushes are bare"); October 20, 1852 ("The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

I was thinking that it bloomed too late for bees or other insects. See Bernd Heinrich, “Thermoregulation in Winter Moths.” Sci. Am 277: 73–83 (1987. ); Anderson & Hill (2002)("Given the morphology of H. virginiana flowers, the exposed glistening staminodes where a thin film of nectar is produced, the small exposed floral parts, the sugar ratio, and documented visits to some of the flowers open in late September or early October, small bees are also potential pollinators") and The Pollination Puzzle of American Witch Hazel (December 2020)

Heard two screech owls in the night. See September 9, 1859 ("Within a week I think I have heard screech owls at evening from over the river once or twice."); October 28, 1855 ("As I paddle under the Hemlock bank this cloudy afternoon, about 3 o’clock, I see a screech owl sitting on the edge of a hollow hemlock stump about three feet high, at the base of a large hemlock. . . . So I spring round quickly, with my arm outstretched, and catch it in my hand. "); November 24, 1858 ("I hear a screech owl in Wheeler’s wood by the railroad, and I heard one a few evenings ago at home") and note to September 23, 1855 ("I hear from my chamber a screech owl — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Screech Owl

Deep warm red leaves of shrub oaks. See October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit."); November 25, 1858 ("Most shrub oaks there have lost their leaves (Quercus ilicifolia), which, very fair and perfect, cover the ground. "); November 29, 1857 ("Again I am struck by the singularly wholesome colors of the withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner."); December 1. 1856 ("The dear wholesome color of shrub oak leaves, so clean and firm, not decaying, but which have put on a kind of immortality, not wrinkled and thin like the white oak leaves, but full-veined and plump, as nearer earth. Well-tanned leather on the one side, sun-tanned, color of colors, color of the cow and the deer, silver-downy beneath, turned toward the late bleached and russet fields . . .The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch.")

On Lee's hillside by the pond, the old leaves of some pitch pines are almost of a golden-yellow hue, seen in the sunlight, a rich autumnal look. The green are, as it were, set in the yellow. See October 19, 1856 ("The rich sunny yellow of the old pitch pine needles, just ready to fall, contrasting with the new and unmixed masses above, makes a very pleasing impression, as I look down into the hollows this side of Lee's Cliff");  October 23, 1852 ("The white pines have shed their leaves, making a yellow carpet on the grass, but the pitch pines are yet parti-colored.")

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. See October 4, 1858 ("Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown"); October 13, 1859 (" I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom for several rods around") See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

 The hoary cinquefoil in blossom. See October 9, 1852 ("Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.") See also June 23, 1851 ("P. argentea, hoary cinquefoil, also is now in blossom.")

A large sassafras tree behind Lee's, two feet diameter at ground. See October 5, 1857 ("Am surprised to see a large sassafras tree, with its rounded umbrella-like top, without limbs beneath, on the west edge of the Yellow Birch Swamp, or east of Boulder Field. It is some sixteen inches in diameter"); March 3, 1859 ("Channing tells me he has met with a sassafras tree in New Bedford woods, which, according to a string which he put round it, is eleven and three quarters feet in circumference at about three feet from the ground.") See also September 28, 1854 ("The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet as seen from my window, and the small ones elsewhere are also changed.") September 30, 1854 ("I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant.")

I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring. See October 8, 1856 ("A song sparrow utters a full strain"); October 26, 1855 ("The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

Cut a stout purple cane of pokeweed. See August 23, 1853 ("Poke stems are now ripe. . . .Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn. . . .I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems"); August 26, 1856 ("I tie my bundle with the purple bark of the poke-weed."); October 5, 1857 ("There is a great abundance of poke [on Eb Hubbard's hill]. That lowest down the hill, killed by frost, drooping and withered, no longer purple-stemmed, but faded; higher up it is still purple.")

The witch-hazel here

is in full blossom on this

magical hillside.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Witch hazel in bloom

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/HDT511009

And in the distance a maple by the water beginning to blush.

September 19

And in the distance a maple by the water beginning to blush

September 19, 2014

P. M. - To Great Meadows.

The red capsules of the sarothra.

Many large crickets about on the sand.

Observe the effects of frost in particular places.

Some blackberry vines are very red.

I see the oxalis and the tree primrose and the Norway cinquefoil and the prenanthes and the Epilobium coloratum and the cardinal-flower and the small hypericum and yarrow, and I think it is the Ranunculus repens, between Ripley Hill and river, with spotted leaves lingering still.

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.

The polygala and the purple gerardia are still common and attract by their high color.

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

The Viola lanceolata has blossomed again, and the lambkill.

What pretty six-fingered leaves the three oxalis leafets make! 

I see the effects of frost on the Salix Purshiana, imbrowning their masses; and in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush.

That small, slender-leaved, rose-tinted (white petals, red calyx) polygonum by the river is perhaps in its prime now; slender spikes and slender lanceolate sessile leaves, with rent hairy and ciliate sheaths, eight stamens, and three styles united in middle. Not biting. I cannot find it described.

Cicuta maculata

And what is that white flower which I should call Cicuta maculata, except that the veins do not terminate in the sinuses?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1852

The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises,  September 19, 1851 ("The soapwort gentian now."); See also September 8, 1852 ("Gentiana saponaria out."); September 19, 1851 ("The soapwort gentian now."); .("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

The red capsules of the sarothra. See August 3, 1852 ("The Hypericum Sarothra appears to be out.."); August 3, 1856 ("Sarothra apparently now in prime."); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”); August 19, 1856 ("The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like. ); August 30, 1856 ("The sarothra is now apparently in prime on the Great Fields, and comes near being open now, at 3 p. m. Bruised, it has the fragrance of sorrel and lemon, rather pungent or stinging, like a bee.”); September 2, 1859 ("The sarothra grows thickly, and is now abundantly in bloom, on denuded places, i.e., where the sod and more or less soil has been removed, by sandy roadsides. "); September 23, 1852 ("The sarothra in bloom");   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

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.")

The purple gerardia are still common and attract by their high color. See August 12, 1856 ("Gerardia purpurea, two or three days."); August 20, 1852 ("The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass."); August 21, 1851 ("The purple gerardia now."); September 11, 1852 ("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.")

The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound. See September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside."); . September 13, 1856 ("Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill, about the oaks. Never saw them thicker in a meadow. A cool, spring-suggesting yellow. They reserve their force till this season, though they begin so early. Cool to the eye, as the creak of the cricket to the ear. "); August 29, 1856 ("Fragrant everlasting in prime and very abundant")

The Viola lanceolata has blossomed again. See September 28, 1852 ("I have now seen all but the blanda, palmata, and pubescens blooming again .. . This is the commencement, then, of the second spring"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

And in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush. See  September 12, 1858 ("Some small red maples by water begun to redden."); September 18, 1858 ("Many red maples are now partly turned dark crimson along the meadow-edge."); September 18, 1860 ("The first autumnal tints (of red maples) are now generally noticed"); September 20, 1857 ("A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there."); September 21, 1854 ("The red maples, especially at a distance, begin to light their fires, some turning yellow, "); September 24, 1851 ("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."); September 24, 1855 ("the maples are but just beginning to blush"); 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."); September 27, 1857 ("At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum."); September 29, 1851 ("The intense brilliancy of the red-ripe maples scattered here and there in the midst of the green oaks and hickories on its hilly shore is quite charming. They are unexpectedly and incredibly brilliant, especially on the western shore and close to the water's edge, where, alternating with yellow birches and poplars and green oaks, they remind me of a line of soldiers, redcoats and riflemen in green mixed together."); September 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to see that some red maples, which were so brilliant a day or two ago, have already shed their leaves, and they cover the land and the water quite thickly."); October 3, 1858 ("Some particular maple among a hundred will be of a peculiarly bright and pure scarlet, and, by its difference of tint and intenser color, attract our eyes even at a distance in the midst of the crowd"); October 8, 1852 (“Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.”)

And what is that white flower which I should call Cicuta maculata? See June 6, 1851 ("Gathered to-night the Cicuta maculata, American hemlock, the veins of the leaflets ending in the notches and the root fasciculated."); August 20, 1851 ("Sium lineare, a kind of water-parsnip, whose blossom resembles the Cicuta maculata.") August 29, 1858 ("Cicuta maculata, apparently generally done."); August 30, 1857 ("The flower of Cicuta maculata smells like the leaves of the golden senecio.."); October 2, 1859 ("The Cicuta maculata, for instance, the concave umbel is so well spaced, the different um-bellets (?) like so many constellations or separate systems in the firmament.") Note. Cicuta maculata is a highly poisonous species of flowering plant in the carrot family known by several common names, including spotted water hemlock, spotted parsley, spotted cowbane, and suicide root. It is considered to be North America's most toxic plant.~ Wikipedia

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

And in the distance

a maple by the water

beginning to blush.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. A maple by the 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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520919 

Now the abundance of dead weeds.

 

October 21.

Thursday P.M. To Second Division Brook and Ministerial Swamp.

Cerastium.

Apparently some flowers yield to the frosts, others linger here and there till the snow buries them.

Saw that the side flowering skull-cap was killed by the frost. If they grow in some nook out of the way of frosts they last so much the longer. Methinks the frost puts a period to a large class.

The goldenrods, being dead, are now a dingy white along the brooks (white fuzz dark brown leaves), together with rusty, fuzzy trumpet-weeds and asters in the same condition.

This is a remarkable feature in the landscape now the abundance of dead weeds. The frosts have done it. Winter comes on gradually.

The red maples have lost their leaves before the rock maple which is now losing its leaves at top first.

All the country over the frosts have come and seared the tenderer herbs along all brook sides. How unobserved this change until it has taken place.

The birds that fly at the approach of winter are come from the north.

Some time since I might have said some birds are leaving us, others, like ducks, are just arriving from the north, the herbs are withering along the brooks, the humming insects are going into winter quarters.

The deciduous trees are green but about four months in the year from June 1st to October 1st perhaps.

Polygonum articulaium lingers still.

Silvery cinquefoil, hedge-mustard, and clover.

I find caddis cases with worms in Second Division Brook.

And what mean those little piles of yellow sand on dark colored stones at the bottom of the swift running water kept together and in place by some kind of gluten and looking as if sprinkled on the stones one eighteenth of an inch in diameter.

These caddis worms just build a little case around themselves and sometimes attach a few dead leaves to disguise it and then fasten it slightly to some swaying grass stem or blade at the bottom in swift water and these are their quarters till next spring .

This reminds me that winter does not put his rude fingers in the bottom of the brooks.

When you look into the brooks you see various dead leaves floating or resting on the bottom and you do not suspect that some are the disguises which the caddis worms have borrowed.

Fresh Baeomyces roseus near Tommy Wheeler's.

The cotton woolly aphides on the alders.

Gilpin speaks of floats of timber on the river Wey in 1775 as picturesque objects. Thus in the oldest settled and civilized country there is a resemblance or reminiscence still of the primitive new country, and more or less timber never ceases to grow on the head waters of its streams and perchance the wild muskrat still perforates its banks. England may endure as long as she grows oaks for her navy. Timber rafts still annually come down the Rhine, like the Mississippi and St Lawrence. But the forests of England are thin for Gilpin says of the Isle of Wight in Charles II's time, "There were woods in the island so complete and extensive that it is said a squirrel might have travelled in several parts many leagues together on the tops of the trees."

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

Fresh Baeomyces roseus near Tommy Wheeler's. See April 3, 1859 ("We need a popular name for the baeomyces. C. suggests "pink mould" Perhaps "pink shot" or "eggs" would do.")

The cotton woolly aphides on the alders. See September 22, 1852 ("Large woolly aphides are now clustered close together on the alder stems") See also June 14, 1853 ("I observed the cotton of aphides on the alders yesterday and to-day. ");  October 29, 1855 ("I see many aphides very thick and long-tailed on the alders."); May 19, 1856 ("Woolly aphides on alder. "); November 10, 1858 ("Aphides on alder."); June 4, 1860 (Aphides on alders, which dirty your clothes with their wool as you walk."")

The red maples have lost their leaves before the rock maple which is now losing its leaves at top first. See October 21, 1858 ("The large sugar maples on the Common are in the midst of their fall to-day.")

The deciduous trees are green but about four months in the year. See October 28, 1852 ("Four months of the green leaf make all our summer, if I reckon from June 1st to October 1st, the growing season, and methinks there are about four months when the ground is white with snow. That would leave two months for spring and two for autumn.")