It is so cool a morning that for the first time I move into the entry to sit in the sun.

August 29

August 29, 2019

I hear in the street this morning a goldfinch sing part of a sweet strain.

It is so cool a morning that for the first time I move into the entry to sit in the sun. But in this cooler weather I feel as if the fruit of my summer were hardening and maturing a little, acquiring color and flavor like the corn and other fruits in the field. 

When the very earliest ripe grapes begin to be scented in the cool nights, then, too, the first cooler airs of autumn begin to waft my sweetness on the desert airs of summer. Now, too, poets nib their pens afresh. I scent their first-fruits in the cool evening air of the year. 

By the coolness the experience of the summer is condensed and matured, whether our fruits be pumpkins or grapes. 

Man, too, ripens with the grapes and apples. 

I find that the water-bugs (Gyrinus) keep amid the pads in open spaces along the sides of the river all day, and, at dark only, spread thence all over the river and gyrate rapidly. For food I see them eating or sucking at the wings and bodies of dead devil's-needles which fall on the water, making them too gyrate in a singular manner. If one gets any such food, the others pursue him for it. 

There was a remarkable red aurora all over the sky last night. 

P. M. — To Easterbrooks Country. 

The vernonia is one of the most conspicuous flowers now where it grows, — a very rich color. It is some what past its prime; perhaps about with the red eupatorium. 

Botrychium lunarioides now shows its fertile frond above the shorn stubble in low grounds, but not shedding pollen. 

See the two-leaved Solomon's-seal berries, many of them ripe; also some ripe mitchella berries, contrasting with their very fresh green leaves. 

White cohush berries, apparently in prime, and the arum fruit. The now drier and browner (purplish- brown) looking rabbit's clover, whose heads collected would make a soft bed, is an important feature in the landscape; pussies some call them; more puffed up than before. 

The thorn bushes are most sere and yellowish-brown bushes now. 

I see more snakes of late, methinks, both striped and the small green. 

The slate-colored spots or eyes — fungi — on several kinds of goldenrods are common now. 

The knife-shaped fruit of the ash has strewn the paths of late.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 29, 1859

It is so cool a morning that for the first time I move into the entry to sit in the sun. See August 29, 1854 ("It is so cool that we are inclined to stand round the kitchen fire . . .I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool") See also September 4, 1860 ("It is cooler these days and nights, and I move into an eastern chamber in the morning, that I may sit in the sun"); September 17, 1858 (“Cooler weather now for two or three days, so that I am glad to sit in the sun on the east side of the house mornings.”); September 18, 1852 ("In the forenoons I move into a chamber on the east side of the house, and so follow the sun round.”)

The very earliest ripe grapes begin to be scented in the cool nights. See August 29, 1853 ("Walking down the street in the evening, I detect my neighbor’s ripening grapes by the scent twenty rods off."); August 27, 1859 ("The first notice I have that grapes are ripening is by the rich scent at evening from my own native vine against the house");August 30, 1853 ("Grapes are already ripe; I smell them first.");

Man, too, ripens with the grapes and apples.See November 14, 1853. ("October answers to that period in the life of man when . . . all his experience ripens into wisdom, but every root, branch, leaf of him glows with maturity. What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit".)

I see more snakes of late, methinks, both striped and the small green. See September 3, 1858 ("See a small striped snake, some fifteen or eighteen inches long, swallowing a toad"); September 13, 1858 (""Saw a striped snake run into the wall, and just before it disappeared heard a loud sound like a hiss") October 18, 1857 (" Snakes lie out now on sunny banks, amid the dry leaves, now as in spring. They are chiefly striped ones.")

There was a remarkable red aurora all over the sky last night. .See also Wikipedia (Solar Cycle 10 beginning in December 1855 and the Solar storm ( Carrington Event.) of September 1–2, 1859) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights

So cool a morning 

that for the first time I move 

to sit in the sun.

The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days.

September 21. 

Monday. P. M. – To Corallorhiza Rock. and Tobacco-pipe Wood, northeast of Spruce Swamp. 

Peaches are now in their prime. 

Came through that thick white pine wood on the east of the spruce swamp. This is a very dense white pine grove, consisting of tall and slender trees which have been thinned, yet they are on an average only from three to six feet asunder. Perhaps half have been cut. It is a characteristic white pine grove, and I have seen many such. The trees are some ten inches in diameter, larger or smaller, and about fifty feet high. They are bare for thirty-five or forty feet up, — which is equal to at least twenty-five years of their growth, or with only a few dead twigs high up. Their green crowded tops are mere oval spear-heads in shape and almost in proportionate size, four to eight feet wide, – not enough, you would think, to keep the tree alive, still less to draw it upward. In a dark day the wood is not only thick but dark with the boles of the trees. 

Under this dense shade, the red-carpeted ground is almost bare of vegetation and is dark at noon. There grow Goodyera pubescens and repens, Corallorhiza multiflora (going to seed), white cohosh berries, Pyrola secunda, and, on the low west side and also the east side, an abundance of tobacco-pipe, which has begun to turn black at the tip of the petals and leaves. 

The Solidago casia is very common and fresh in copses, perhaps the prevailing solidago now in woods. 

Rudbeckia laciniata done, probably some time. 

The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days. 

Measured the large white willow north the road near Hildreth's. At a foot and a half from the ground it is fourteen feet in circumference; at five feet, the smallest place, it is twelve feet in circumference. It was once still larger, for it has lost large branches.[Cut down in '59.]

H. D. Thoereau, Journal, September 21, 1857


Corallorhiza Rock. See August 29, 1857 ("Nearby, north [of Indian Rock, west of the swamp], is a rocky ridge, on the east slope of which the Corallorhiza multiflora is very abundant.")

Corallorhiza multiflora [spotted coral root] (going to seed)... See note to August 13, 1857

Under this dense shade, the red-carpeted ground is almost bare of vegetation and is dark at noon. There grow Goodyera pubescens and repens See August 20, 1857 ("The Goodyera repens grows behind the spring where I used to sit, amid the dead pine leaves") and note to August 27, 1856 (“Goodyera pubescens, rattlesnake-plantain, is apparently a little past its prime. It is very abundant on Clintonia Swamp hillside. . .”)

An abundance of tobacco-pipe, which has begun to turn black . . . See July 24, 1856 ("Tobacco-pipe much blackened, out a long time.")

The Solidago casia is very common and fresh in copses, perhaps the prevailing solidago now in woods. See October 8, 1856 ("S. casia, much the worse for the wear, but freshest of any [goldenrod] seen.")

The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days. See  September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day, warm but not too warm, a harvest day . . ."If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.”); August 29, 1854 ("I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool, and Nature seems really more genial. ")

Red cohosh berries well ripe

August 11. 

Tuesday. 

Red cohosh berries well ripe in front of Hunt's, perhaps a week or more, - a round, conical spike, two and a half inches long by one and three quarters, of about thirty cherry-red berries. The berries oblong, seven sixteenths of an inch by six sixteenths, with a seam on one side, on slender pedicels about five eighths of an inch long.

H. D.  Thoreau, Journal, August 11, 1857


Red cohosh berries well ripe. See July 31, 1857 ("I also saw here [the East Branch] the red cohosh berries, ripe, (for the first time in my life")

August 11.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 11

 

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

Botanizing the East Branch

July 31. 

Friday. 

This morning heard from the camp the red-eye, robin (P. said it was a sign of rain), tweezer-bird, i. e. parti-colored warbler, chickadee, wood thrush, and soon after starting heard or saw a blue jay. . . . 

I saw here my sweet-scented Aster macrophyllus (?) just out, also, near end of carry in rocky woods, a new plant, the halenia or spurred gentian, which I observed afterward on the carries all the way down to near the mouth of the East Branch, eight inches to two feet high. 

I also saw here, or soon after, the red cohosh berries, ripe, (for the first time in my life); spikenard, etc. 

The commonest aster of the woods was A. acuminatus, not long out, and the commonest solidago on the East Branch, Solidago squarrosa. . . .

P. said that his mother was a Province woman and as white as anybody, but his father a pure-blooded Indian. I saw no trace of white blood in his face, and others, who knew him well and also his father, were confident that his mother was an Indian and suggested that she was of the Quoddy tribe (belonged to New Brunswick), who are often quite light-colored. . . . 

[Below Bowlin stream] I got  one (apparently) Lilium superbum flower, with strongly revolute sepals and perfectly smooth leaves beneath, otherwise not large nor peculiar. 

On this East Branch we saw many of the small purple fringed orchis (Platanthera psycodes), but no large ones (P. fimbriata), which alone were noticed on the West Branch and Umbazookskus. 

Also saw often the Lysimachia ciliata, and once white cohosh berries, and at one place methinks the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum (?) with the other. . . . 

On a small bare sand or gravel bar, I observed that same Prunus which grows on the rocks at Bellows Falls, whose leaf might at first sight be mistaken for that of a willow. It is evidently the Prunus depressa (sand cherry) of Pursh, and distinct, as a variety at least, from the common allied one (P. pumila of Pursh), which is not depressed even when it grows, as it often does abundantly, in river meadows (e. g. Edmund Hosmer's on Assabet). The leaf of the former is more lanceoate-spatulate, and I have never seen it in Concord, though the P. pumila is very common here. Gray describes but one kind. 

Jackson, being some miles below this, in the East Branch, the 6th of October, twenty years ago, says, "There are several small gravelly islands covered with a profusion of deep purple beach plums, but since they had been frozen they were found to be taste less and insipid." We did not see any of these.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 31, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We had smooth but swift water for a considerable distance, where we glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks and kingfishers. But, as usual, our smooth progress ere long came to an end, and we were obliged to carry canoe and all about half a mile down the right bank, around some rapids or falls. . . .I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on account of falls or rapids. We were expecting all the while that the river would take a final leap and get to smooth water, but there was no improvement this fore noon. However, the carries were an agreeable variety. So surely as we stepped out of the canoe and stretched our legs we found ourselves in a blueberry and raspberry garden, each side of our rocky trail around the falls being lined with one or both.. . . For seven or eight miles below that succession of " Grand " falls, the aspect of the banks as well as the character of the stream was changed. After passing a tributary from the northeast, perhaps Bowlin Stream, we had good swift smooth water, with a regular slope, such as I have described. Low, grassy banks and muddy shores began.. . Soon afterward a white-headed eagle sailed down the stream before us. We drove him several miles, while we were looking for a good place to camp, for we expected to be overtaken by a shower, — and still we could distinguish him by his white tail, sailing away from time to time from some tree by the shore still farther down the stream... . We at length found a place to our minds, on the west bank, about a mile below the mouth of the Seboois, ...in a very dense spruce wood above a gravelly shore... .")

Three yellow wasps' nests: Mrs. Brown, Mr. Smith and HDT

June 28. 

Geum Virginianum [cream-colored avens]some time, apparently, past its prime by red cohosh. It was not nearly out June 7th; say, then, the 18th. 

I hear on all hands these days, from the elms and other trees, the twittering peep of young gold robins, which have recently left their nests, and apparently indicate their locality to their parents by thus incessantly peeping all day long. 

Observe to-night a yellow wasps' (?) nest, made of the same kind of paper with the hornets', in horizontal strips, some brownish, some white. It is broad cone-shape, some two inches in its smallest diameter, with a hole at the apex beneath about one half inch diameter, and is suspended to the sheathing overhead within the recess at Mrs. Brown's front door. She is afraid of the wasps, and so I brush it off for her. 

It contains only one comb about one and one eighth inches in diameter suspended from above, and this is surrounded by about two thin coverings of paper an eighth of an inch or more apart. The wasps looked at first like bees, with yellow rings on the abdomen. The cells contain what look and move like white grubs. 

It is apparently the same kind of nest that I observed first a few days since, of the same size, under the peak of our roof, just over my chamber windows. 


(July 7th, The last is now five inches in diameter. Watching the nest over my window, I see that the wasps are longer than honey-bees and have a white place between the abdomen and breast. There are commonly three or four visible at once about the nest, and they are continually bringing down new layers of paper from the top about a sixth of an inch distant from the last, building downward on all sides at once evenly and beginning, or starting, a new one before they have finished the first.* 

They have turned the entrance a little outward; i.e., have built the successive layers a little over its inner side, i. e. that to ward the house, so that it partly faces outward. They are continually arriving and departing, and one or two commonly are at work at once on the edge of the new curtain or layer. 

What becomes of the first layers surrounding the comb within? Do they steadily cut them away and use them on the outside, and build new and larger combs beneath ? Some that come forth appear to have something white like the paper in their mouths, at any rate.) 

There is one in Mr. Smith's bank, one side open and flat against the ground. One of his men thinks they will not sting him if he holds his breath.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 28, 1857

*July 14, these new layers are coming down like new leaves, investing it.

I hear on all hands these days, from the elms and other trees, the twittering peep of young gold robins. See June 28, 1855 ("Hear and see young golden robins which have left the nest, now peeping with a peculiar tone."); July 1, 1859 ("The peculiar peep of young tailless golden robins for a day or more"); July 2, 1860 ("Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins, ")

Now I notice many bubbles left on the water in my wake.

June 7. 

Sunday. P.M. — To river and Ponkawtasset with M. Pratt. 

June 7, 2017

Now I notice many bubbles left on the water in my wake, as if it were more sluggish or had more viscidity than earlier. Far behind me they rest without bursting. 

Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime, — some was withering, so it may have been out ten days,— from the bog near Bateman's Pond; also Oxalis violacea, which he says began about last Sunday, or May 31st, larger and handsomer than the yellow, though it blossoms but sparingly. Red huckleberry about same time. It is sticky like the black. His geranium from Fitzwilliam is well in bloom. It seems to be herb-robert, but without any offensive odor! (?)

A small elm in front of Pratt's which he says three years ago had flowers in flat cymes, like a cornel! ! [He must be mistaken.] I have pressed some leaves. 

At the cross-wall below N. Hunt's, some way from road, the red cohush, one plant only in flower, the rest going to seed. Probably, therefore, with the white. It has slender pedicels and petals shorter than the white. 

Garlic grows there, not yet out. 

Rubus triflorus still in bloom there. 

At the base of some hellebore, in a tuft a little from under the east edge of an apple tree, below violet wood-sorrel, a nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end. 

The bird, which flew off quickly, made me think of a wren and of a Maryland yellow-throat, though I saw no yellow. 

It was a Maryland yellow-throat. 

Egg fresh. She is very shy and will not return to nest while you wait, but keeps up a very faint chip in the bushes or grass at some distance.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 7, 1857

Now I notice many bubbles left on the water in my wake. See September 14, 1854 ("Now our oars leave a broad wake of large bubbles, which are slow to burst.”)

Oxalis violacea, which [Pratt] says began about last Sunday, or May 31st, larger and handsomer than the yellow, though it blossoms but sparingly . . . under the east edge of an apple tree, below violet wood-sorrel, a nest . . . See June 7, 1858 ("Oxalis violacea in garden.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Wood Sorrel (Oxalis)

A nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end. See June 8, 1855 ("What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs (two hatched the 11th), nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end—nearly hatched? . . .(June 11.—It is a Maryland yellow-throat.)”); June 10, 1858 ("Perfectly concealed under the loose withered grass at the base of a clump of birches, with no apparent entrance. The usual small deep nest (but not raised up) of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches. The bird flits out very low and swiftly and does not show herself, so that it is hard to find the nest or to identify the bird.”); June 12, 1859 ("To Gowing's Swamp . . .Maryland yellow-throat four eggs, fresh, in sphagnum in the interior omphalos.")

June 7. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 7

Bubbles left behind

on the water in my wake 

rest without bursting.

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

Methinks it stands thus with goldenrods and asters now.

September 24. 

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. 

Not a sign of an artichoke flower yet below Moore's! May they not be earlier elsewhere? 

At brook, cohush and arum berries still fresh, and Viburnum acerifolium berries. 

Apparently Asplenium Thelypteroides, a large fern, its under side covered with linear fruit. 

Methinks it stands thus with goldenrods and asters now:

Early S. stricia, done some time.
Swamp "   " probably past prime.
My S. gigantea (?), probably done.
S. nemoralis, about done.
S. altissima, much past prime.
S. odora, not seen but probably done.
S. puberula, say in good condition, or in prime.

S. bicolor and var. concolor, in prime.
S. lanceolata, say done.
S. lalifolia, in prime.
S. casta, in prime.
S. speciosa (none the 15th).

Early meadow aster, say done long time.

Diplopappus cornifolius, not seen of late.
D. umbellatus, still abundant.
A. patens, some still fresh but not common.
A. macrophyllus, not observed of late.
A. acuminatum, not observed at all in C.
A. Radula, probably about done, not seen of late.
A. dumosus, considerably past prime. D. linariifolius, in prime, abundant.
A. undulatus, in prime, abundant.
A. corymbosus, still fresh though probably past prime.
A. laevis, probably still in prime.
A. Tradescanli, in prime.
A. puniceus, still in prime (??).
A. hngifolius, in prime.
A. multiflorus, in prime.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 24, 1856 

Not a sign of an artichoke flower yet . . . See October 5, 1860 ("The frosts have this year killed all of Stow's artichokes before one of them had blossomed, but those in Alcott's garden had bloomed probably a fortnight ago.”)

Cohush and arum berries still fresh, and Viburnum acerifolium berries . . . See September 1, 1856 ("Cohush berries appear now to be in their prime, and arum berries”); September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man. . . .”)

Goldenrods and asters. See September 1, 1856  ("I think it stands about thus with asters and golden- rods now. . .”); August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are, 1st, stricta (the upland and also meadow one which I seem to have called puberula); 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last); 3d, altissima, though commonly only a part of its panicles; 4th, nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom.Then there is the odora, 5th, out some time, but not common; and, 6th, the bicolor, just begun in some places. The commonest asters now are, 1st, the Radula; 2d, dumosus; 3d, patens; 4th, say puniceus; 5th, cordtfolius; 6th, macrophyllus; (these two a good while); 7th, say Tradescanti ; 8th, miser; 9th, longifolius ; (these three quite rare yet); 10th, probably acuminatus, some time (not seen); 11th, undulatus ; 12th, loevis; (these two scarcely to be seen yet). “)

When colors come to be taught in the schools.

September 1

P. M. — With R. W. E. to Saw Mill and Solidago odora. 

He has just had four of his fir trees next his house cut, they shaded his windows so. They were set out by Coolidge, E. thinks twenty-eight years ago. The largest has thirty-seven annual rings at the base and measures at one foot from the ground forty-six and a half inches in circumference; has made, on an average, about half an inch of wood in every direction. 

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

Solidago latifolia not out quite. 

We go admiring the pure and delicate tints of fungi on the surface of the damp swamp there, following up along the north side of the brook past the right of the old camp. There are many very beautiful lemon- yellow ones of various forms, some shaped like buttons, some becoming finely scalloped on the edge, some club-shaped and hollow, of the most delicate and rare but decided tints, contrasting well with the decaying leaves about them. There are others also pure white, others a wholesome red, others brown, and some even a light indigo-blue above and beneath and throughout. 

When colors come to be taught in the schools, as they should be, both the prism (or the rainbow) and these fungi should be used by way of illustration, and if the pupil does not learn colors, he may learn fungi, which perhaps is better. 

You almost envy the wood frogs and toads that hop amid such gems, — some pure and bright enough for a breastpin. Out of every crevice between the dead leaves oozes some vehicle of color, the unspent wealth of the year, which Nature is now casting forth, as if it were only to empty herself. 

Cohush berries appear now to be in their prime, and arum berries, and red choke-berries, which last further up in this swamp, with their peculiar glossy red and squarish form, are really very handsome. A few medeola berries ripe. 

The very dense clusters of the smilacina berries, finely purple-dotted on a pearly ground, are very interesting; also the smaller and similar clusters of the two-leaved convallaria. Many of the last and a few of the first are already turned red, clear semilucent red. They have a pleasant sweetish taste. 

Cistus flowers well out again in the old camp path, now nearly all grown up. I notice that the birches have sprung up in close, straight rows in the old ruts there. 

I think it stands about thus with asters and golden- rods now : 

The early meadow aster is either quite withered or much the worse for the wear, partly on account of the freshet.
Diplopappus cornifolius, not seen of late.
D. umbellatus, perhaps in prime or approaching it, but not much seen.
A. patens, apparently now in prime and the most abundant of the larger asters.
A. macrophyllus, probably past prime.
A. acuminatus, not seen at all.
A. Radula, rather past prime.
A. dumosus, very common, most so of the small white, and in prime.
D. linariifolius, hardly noticed.
A. undidatus, hardly one seen yet open, a late aster.
A. corymbosus, in prime, or maybe past.
A. laevis, just beginning.
A. Tradescanti, got to be pretty common, but not yet in prime.
A. puniceus, hardly yet in prime.
A. longifolius, hardly one seen yet.
A. multiflorus, not one seen yet.
Solidago stricta, still very abundant, though probably a little past prime.
S. gigantea, say in prime.
S. nemoralis, not quite in prime, but very abundant.
S. altissima, perhaps in prime.
S. odora, in prime, or maybe a little past.
S. puberula, just beginning, rare in any case.
S. bicolor, not quite in prime, but common.
S. lanceolaia, in prime, or past.
S. latifolia, not yet at all.
S. casta, just begun.
S. speciosa, not at all yet.

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

Cohush berries appear now to be in their prime, and arum berries, and red choke-berries, . . .. A few medeola berries ripe. See September 2, 1853 ("The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion on a rich ground . . . The medeola berries are now dull glossy and almost blue-black; about three, on slender threads one inch long, arising in the midst of the cup formed by the purple bases of the whorl of three upper leaves."); September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man.. . .Berries which are as beautiful as flowers, but far less known, the fruit of the flower.")

Asters and golden- rods now. See August 30, 1853 ("Why so many asters and goldenrods now? The sun has shone on the earth, and the goldenrod is his fruit. The stars, too, have shone on it, and the asters are their fruit.")

Now is the summer come.

May 30

May 30. 2012

Now is the summer come. A breezy, washing day. A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave.

What kind of blackberry do I find in blossom in Hubbard's Swamp? Pass a cow that has just dropped her calf in the meadow. The sumach (glabra) is well under weigh now. The yellow water ranunculus by the Corner causeway. There are young robins in nests. To what sparrow belong the coffee-colored eggs in Hubbard's field by the brook? White cohosh in bloom; high blueberry flowers are quite conspicuous.

Violets everywhere spot the meadows, some more purple, some more lilac. . . .Distinguished the Viola palmata in Hubbard's meadow, near the sidesaddle-flowers, which last are just beginning to blossom. The last are quite showy flowers when the wind turns them so as to show their under sides.

Strong lights and shades now. It is a day of shadows, the leaves have so grown, and of wind, – a washing  day, – and the shadows of the clouds are observed flitting over the landscape.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1852

Now is the summer come.  . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave.  . . .   See May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June.”); May 27, 1855 ("The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave;. . .”);  May 26, 1854 (At sight of this deep and dense field all vibrating with motion and light, winter recedes many degrees in my memory. . . . The season of grass, now everywhere green and luxuriant.”); May 19, 1860 ("The grass, especially the meadow-grasses, are seen to wave distinctly, and the shadows of the bright fair-weather cumuli are sweeping over them.")

Violets everywhere spot the meadows, some more purple, some more lilac. . . . Distinguished the Viola palmata in Hubbard's meadow,. See May 30, 1853 ("The Viola palmata, which is later, and therefore, methinks, fresher than most, is now quite prevalent, one of the most common, in fact, in low ground and a very handsome purple, with more red than usual in its violet.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

Strong lights and shades now.

It is a day of shadows,

the leaves have so grown –

and of wind –

A day for shadows

of fast moving clouds over

fields of waving grass.

,A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Now is the Summer come

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

May 30. Sunday.

Now is the summer come. A breezy, washing day. A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave.

 Senecio in bloom. A bird's nest in grass, with coffee-colored eggs. Cinquefoil and houstonia cover the ground, mixed with the grass and contrasting with each other.

 Strong lights and shades now.

Wild cherry on the low shrubs, but not yet the trees, a rummy scent.

Violets everywhere spot the meadows, some more purple, some more lilac.

The tall pipe-grass (Equisetum uliginosum) .

The Drosera rotundifolia now glistens with its dew at midday, a beautiful object closely examined.

The dwarf andromeda is about out of bloom. Its new shoots from the side of the old stem are an inch or more long. The little leaves appear to be gradually falling off, after all. See again if they do not all fall off in the summer.

Distinguished the Viola palmata in Hubbard's meadow, near the sidesaddle-flowers, which last are just beginning to blossom. The last are quite showy flowers when the wind turns them so as to show their under sides.

It is a day of shadows, the leaves have so grown, and of wind, — a washing day, — and the shadows of the clouds are observed flitting over the landscape.

 I do not yet observe a difference between the two kinds of Pyrus arbutifolia, if, indeed, I have compared the two, i. e. my early black and later red-fruited, which last holds on all winter.

The fruit of the amelanchier is as big as small peas. I have not noticed any other berry so large yet.

The anemones appear to be nearly gone.

Yellow lilies are abundant.

The bulbous arethusa, the most splendid, rich, and high-colored flower thus far, methinks, all flower and color, almost without leaves, and looking much larger than it is, and more conspicuous on account of its intense color. A flower of mark. It appeared two or three times as large as reality when it flashed upon me from the meadow. Bigelow calls it a " crystalline purple." (Saw some the 6th of June, but no longer fresh.)

What kind of blackberry did I find in blossom in Hubbard's Swamp?

 Passed a cow that had just dropped her calf in the meadow.

The sumach (glabra) is well under weigh now.

The yellow water ranunculus by the Corner causeway.

There are young robins in nests.

To what sparrow belong the coffee-colored eggs in Hubbard's field by the brook ?

White cohush in bloom; also Smilacina stellata.

The branches or branchlets of the maidenhair fern are so disposed as to form two thirds of a cup around the stem.

The flowers of the sassafras have not such a fragrance as I perceived last year.

High blueberry flowers are quite conspicuous.

The bass leaf is now large and handsome.

The geranium is a delicate flower and be longs especially to shady places under trees and shrubs, — better if about springs, — in by-nooks, so modest.

The early gnaphaliums are gone to seed, having run up seven or ten inches.

The field plantain, which I saw in Plymouth a week ago, abundant there.

The narrow- leaved cotton-grass.

The Equisetum sylvaticum, or wood horse-tail in the meadows.

The lupine, which I saw almost in blossom a week ago at Plymouth, I hear is in blossom here.

 The river is my own highway, the only wild and unfenced part of the world hereabouts.

 How much of the world is widow's thirds, with a hired man to take negligent care of it!

The apple trees are about out of blossom. It is but a week they last.

 Israel Rice thinks the first half of June is not commonly so warm as May, and that the reason is that vegetation is so advanced that the earth is shaded and protected from the sun by the grass also, so that it is delayed in being warmed by the summer sun.