A very interesting purple with its fine waving top, mixed with blue-eyed grass.

July 3. 

P. M. — To Hubbard's Grove.

You see in rich moist mowing the yet slender, recurving unexpanded panicles or heads of the red-top (?), mixed with the upright, rigid herd's-grass. Much of it is out in dry places. 

Glyceria fluitans is very abundant in Depot Field Brook. 

Hypericum ellipticum out. 

I noticed the other day, I think the 30th, a large patch of Agrostis scabra in E. Hosmer's meadow, — the firmer ridges, — a very interesting purple with its fine waving top, mixed with blue-eyed grass.

July 3, 2019
partridge berry

The Mitchella repens, so abundant now in the north west part of Hubbard's Grove, emits a strong astringent cherry-like scent as I walk over it, now that it is so abundantly in bloom, which is agreeable to me, — spotting the ground with its downy-looking white flowers. 

Eleocharis obtusa and acicularis are now apparently in prime at water's edge by Hubbard's Grove bridge path. 

Also Juncus bufonius is very abundant in path there, fresh quite, though some shows seed. Juncus tenuis, though quite fresh, is also as much gone to seed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1859

The yet slender, recurving unexpanded panicles or heads of the red-top. See July 6, 1851 ("The red-topped grass is in its prime, tingeing the fields with red.");  July 13, 1860 ("First we had the June grass reddish-brown, and the sorrel red, of June; now the red-top red of July.)

Hypericum ellipticum out. See 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.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

A large patch of Agrostis scabra a very interesting purple with its fine waving top, mixed with blue-eyed grass. See July 11, 1860 (" I am interested now by patches of Agrostis scabra. Drooping and waving in the wind a rod or two over amid the red-top and herd's-grass of A.Wheeler's meadow, this grass gives a pale purple sheen to those parts, the most purple impression of any grass.")

Mixed with blue-eyed grass. See June 15, 1851 ("The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up to heaven."); July 6, 1851("Blue-eyed grass is now rarely seen. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, blue-eyed grass

The Mitchella repens, so abundant now in the north west part of Hubbard's Grove, emits a strong astringent cherry-like scent. See  July 2, 1859 ("Mitchella repens is abundantly out").  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Partridge-berry (Mitchella Repens)

Wth its white flowers

so abundantly in bloom

Mitchella repens

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

interesting purplemixed with blue-eyed grass

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau 

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

This is where the men who save the country are born and bred.

June 15.

Suddenly hot weather, - 90° - after very cool days.



Yarrow out, how long? 

Blue flag abundant. 

Blue-eyed grass at height. 

Saw near mill, on the wooded hillside, a regular old-fashioned country house, long and low, one story unpainted, with a broad green field, half orchard, for all yard between it and the road, — a part of the hill side, — and much June-grass before it. This is where the men who save the country are born and bred. Here is the pure fountain of human life. 

Walked over a rocky hill there in the midst of the heat. How interesting a thin patch of strawberry vines now on a rocky hillside, though the fruit is quite scarce! Good for suggestion and intention, at least. 

Herd's-grass spikes just appear; not in bloom. 

Sitting by Hubbard Bath swamp wood and looking north, at 3 P.M., I notice the now peculiar glaucous color of the very water, as well as the meadow-grass (i.e. sedge), at a dozen or twenty rods' distance, seen through the slight haze which accompanies this first June heat. A sort of leaden color, as if the fumes of lead floated over it.

Young crow blackbirds which have left the nest, with great heads and bills, the top of the head covered with a conspicuous raised light-colored down.

A fly (good-sized) with a large black patch on the wing and a reddish head alights on my hand. (A day or two after, one with a greenish head.) 

Birds shoot like twigs. The young are as big as the old when they leave the nest; have only got to harden and mature.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, June 15, 1859

Suddenly hot weather, - 90° - after very cool days. See June 15, 1860 ("A new season begun.") and  June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th . . .”)

Yarrow out, how long? See June 15, 1851("And the yarrow, with its persistent dry stalks and heads, is now ready to blossom again")

Blue flag abundant. See June 10, 1858 ("Common blue flag, how long?"); June 14, 1853 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) grows in this pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shores, and is very beautiful, . . . especially its reflections in the water.); June 30,1851 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) enlivens the meadow.”)

Blue-eyed grass at height,  See June 15, 1851 ("The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up to heaven.")

A regular old-fashioned country house, long and low, one story unpainted, with a broad green field, half orchard See August 26, 1856 ("What is a New England landscape this sunny August day? A weather-painted house and barn, with an orchard by its side, in midst of a sandy field surrounded by green woods, with a small blue lake on one side.”); April 24, 1857 (“Now the sun comes out and shines on the pine hill west of Ball's Hill, lighting up the light-green pitch pines and the sand and russet-brown lichen-clad hill. That is a very New England landscape. Buttrick's yellow farmhouse near by is in harmony with it.")