Summer grasses.

June 21. 

June 21, 2019

Tuesday. P. M. — To Derby's pasture behind and beyond schoolhouse. 

Meadow-sweet. 

Hedge-hyssop out. 

In that little pool near the Assabet, above our bath-place there, Glyceria pallida well out in water and Carex lagopodurides just beginning. 

That grass covering dry and dryish fields and hills, with curled or convolute radical leaves, is apparently Festuca ovina, and not Danthonia as I thought it. It is now generally conspicuous. Are any of our simpler forms the F. tenella? [Vide July 2d, 1860.]

You see now the Eupatoreum purpureum pushing up in rank masses in the low grounds, and the lower part of the uppermost leaves, forming a sort of cup, is conspicuously purplish.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 21, 1859

Hedge-hyssop out. See August 6, 1855 ("These great meadows through which I wade have a great abundance of hedge-hyssop now in bloom in the water. ")

That grass covering dry and dryish fields and hills, with curled or convolute radical leaves. See July 10, 1860 ("The Festuca ovina is a peculiar light-colored, whitish grass.");

Are any of our simpler forms the F. tenella? July 2, 1860 ("Yesterday I detected the smallest grass that I know, apparently Festuca tenella (?), apparently out of bloom, in the dry path southwest of the yew, — only two to four inches high, like a moss.")

The Eupatoreum purpureum pushing up in rank masses. See August 6, 1856 ("Eupatorium purpureum at Stow's Pool, apparently several days")

Peetweets

July 2.  

Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins, and by the river fields the alarm note of the peetweets, concerned about their young.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, July 2, 1860

See July 2, 1853  ("The peetweets are quite noisy about the rocks in Merrick's pasture when I approach; have eggs or young there, which they are anxious about.")

At this season the shores and marshes resound with the quick, clear, and oft-repeated note of peet weet, peet weet, followed up by a plaintive call on the young, of peet, peet, peet? peet? If this is not answered by the scattered brood, a reiterated 'weet, 'weet, 'weet, 'wait, 'wait, is heard, the voice dropping on the final syllables. The whole marsh and the shores at times echo to this loud, lively, and solicitous call of the affectionate parents for their brood; and an imitation of the whistle of peet weet, is almost sure to meet with an answer from the sympathizing broods, which now throng our marshes.

J. J Audubon

July 2. A. M. — To lilies above Nut Meadow.

 The phalaris heads are now closed up, and it looks like another kind of grass, — those heads which stood so whitish some eighteen inches above their broad green leaves. The bayonet rush is not quite out.

The lilies are not yet in prime. A large one measures six and a half inches over by two and a half high.

Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins, and by the river fields the alarm note of the peetweets, concerned about their young.

Does not the summer regime of the river begin say about July 1st, when the black willow is handsome and the beds of front-rank polygonum are formed above water ?

Yesterday I detected the smallest grass that I know, apparently Festuca tenella (?), apparently out of bloom, in the dry path southwest of the yew, — only two to four inches high, like a moss.