Does not the season require this tonic?

August 13

August 13. 

P. M. — To Conantum. 




Beck says of the small circaea (C. alpina), "Many botanists consider this a mere variety of the preceding." I am not sure but it is more deeply toothed than the large. Its leaves are of the same color with those of the large at Bittern Cliff, but more decidedly toothed;

alpine enchanter’s-nightshade

(Circaea alpina)

q. v. Why does it not grow larger at Corner Spring? 

The root of the Polygala verticillata also has the checkerberry odor. 

In Bittern Cliff Woods that (apparently) very oblong elliptical leafed Lespedeza violacea (?), growing very loose and open on a few long petioles, one foot high by four or five inches wide. Is this because it grows in woods? It is not in bloom. 

Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime? — The polygala roots, blue-curls, wormwood, pennyroyal, Solidago odora, rough sunflowers, horse-mint, etc., etc. Does not the season require this tonic? 

I stripped off a shred of Indian hemp bark and could not break it. It is as strong as anything of the kind I know.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 13, 1856

The small circaea (C. alpine). . . leaves are of the same color with those of the large at Bittern Cliff.  See June 19, 1856 ("enchanter’s-nightshade"); July 8, 1856 ("Circaea alpina, some days, a foot high with opaque leaves and bracts . . .  the same with the small, also bracted, one at Corner Spring”); August 1, 1855 ("Pennyroyal and alpine enchanter’s-nightshade well out, how long?”)

A prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime . . . See August 11, 1853  ("Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle.”); August 13, 1852 ("Pennyroyal abundant in bloom. I find it springing from the soil lodged on large rocks in sprout-lands, and gather a little bundle, which scents my pocket for many days."); August 26, 1856 ("I gather a bundle of pennyroyal; it grows largest and rankest high and close under these rocks, amid the loose stones.") See also December 14, 1855 ("In a little hollow I see the sere gray pennyroyal rising above the snow, which, snuffed, reminds me of garrets full of herbs.”)  See also June 6, 1851 ("Bigelow says, “The leaves of the Solidago odora have a delightfully fragrant odor, partaking of that of anise and sassafras, but different from either.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aromatic Herbs;  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Polygala

Indian hemp . . . is as strong as anything of the kind I know. See August 9, 1856 ("Again I am surprised to see the Apocynum cannabinum close to the rock at the Island”); August 16, 1856 ("I find the dog's-bane (Apocynum androsoemifolium) bark not the nearly so strong as that of the A. cannabinum. "); September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain, and concluded that it did not grow here. A month or two ago . . .my eyes fell on it, aye, in three different places, and different varieties of it. ");  Compare January 19,   1856 (“ I strip off some  [milkweed] bark . . . and, separating ten or twelve fibres from the epidermis, roll it in my fingers, making a thread about the ordinary size. This I can not break by direct pulling . . .I  doubt if a thread of flax or hemp of the same size could be made so strong."). See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Dogsbane and Indian hemp

August 13. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, August 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 © 2009-202

Hear at distance the hum of bees like the rumbling of a distant train of cars.

July 17. 

July 17, 2016

Found a great many insects in white lilies which opened in pan this forenoon, which had never opened before. What regular and handsome petals! regularly concave toward the inside, and calyx hooked at tip. 

P. M. — To Water Dock Meadow and Linnaea Hill side. 

Hear a new note from bank swallows when going over the Hosmer pastures, a sort of screep screep, shrill and like what I have referred to the barn swallow. They are probably out with young. 

Ludwigia palustris and ilysanthes have been out apparently some time on the flat Hosmer shore or meadow, where the surface has been laid bare by the ice. There, too, the Hypericum Sarothra has pushed up abundantly. 

I see many young toads hopping about on that bared ground amid the thin weeds, not more than five eighths to three quarters of an inch long; also young frogs a little larger. 

Horse-mint out at Clamshell, apparently two or three days.

Bathed at Clamshell. See great schools of minnows, apparently shiners, hovering in the clear shallow next the shore. They seem to choose such places for security. They take pretty good care of themselves and are harder to catch with the hands than you expect, darting out of the way at last quite swiftly. Caught three, however, between my hands.

They have brighter golden irides, all the abdomen conspicuously pale-golden, the back and half down the sides pale-brown, a broad, distinct black band along sides (which methinks marks the shiner), and comparatively transparent beneath behind vent. 

When the water is gone I am surprised to see how they can skip or spring from side to side in my cup-shaped two hands for a long time. This to enable them to get off floating planks or pads on the shore when in fright they may have leaped on to them. But they are very tender, and the sun and air soon kill them. If there is any water in your hand they will pass out through the smallest crack between your fingers. They are about three quarters of an inch long generally, though of various sizes. 

Half a dozen big bream come quite up to me, as I stand in the water. They are not easily scared in such a case. 

The large skunk-cabbage fruit looks quite black now where the haymakers have passed. 

Stooping to drink at the Hosmer Spring, I saw a hundred caddis-cases, of light-colored pebbles, at the bottom, and a dozen or twenty crawled half-way up the side of the tub, apparently on their way out to become perfect insects. 

Cows in their pasture, going to water or elsewhere, make a track four or five inches deep and frequently not more than ten inches wide. 

The great water dock has been out some days at least. Its valves are quite small at first, but lower leaves pointed. 

I hear in the meadow there a faint incessant z-ing sound, as of small locusts in the meadow-grass. 

Under the oak in Brown's moraine pasture, by Water Dock Meadow, a great arum more than three feet high, like a tropical plant, in open land, with leafets more than a foot long. There is rich-weed there, apparently not quite out. 

Going up the hillside, between J. P. Brown's and rough-cast house, am surprised to see great plump ripe low blackberries. How important their acid (as well as currants) this warm weather! 

It is 5 p. m. The wood thrush begins to sing. A very warm afternoon. Thermometer at 97° at the Hosmer Desert. I hear the early locust. 

I have come to collect birds' nests. The thrasher's is apparently made partly beneath the surface, some dirt making its sides. I find the nests by withered twigs and leaves broken off in the spring, but commonly nearly concealed by the recent growth. 

The jay's nest had been filled with white oak leaves. Not one could have been blown into it. 

On Linnaea Hill many thimble-berries and some raspberries.

Evening by river to Ed. Homer’s. 

Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars. 

Returning after ten, by moonlight, see the bullfrogs lying at full length on the pads where they trump.

July 17, 2016

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 17, 1856

Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass . . .like the rumbling of a distant train of cars. See July 14, 1856 ("Bass out about two days at Island.");  July 18, 1854 ("At a little distance it is like the sound of a waterfall or of the cars; close at hand like a factory full of looms.”); July 16, 1852 ("The tree resounds with the hum of bees,. . . a sound unlike any other in nature . .  .”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

They have . . . a broad, distinct black band along sides (which methinks marks the shiner), and comparatively transparent beneath behind vent. . . . See March 29, 1854 ("poised over the sand on invisible fins, the outlines of a shiner". . . "distinct longitudinal light-colored line midway along their sides and a darker line below it”)

Surprised to see great plump ripe low blackberries. See  July 17, 1852 ("Notwithstanding the rain, some children still pursue their blackberrying on the Great Fields.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

It is 5 p. m. The wood thrush begins to sing. See July 19, 1854 ("A wood thrush to-night."); July 20, 1852 ("It is starlight. . . .And now, when we had thought the day birds gone to roost, the wood thrush takes up the strain.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush

See the bullfrogs lying at full length on the pads where they trump... See July 17, 1860 ("Clean and handsome bullfrogs. . .sit imperturbable out on the stones all around the pond.”)

Botonizing the meadows

August 6, 2015

August 6

Down river to Tarbell Hill with C. 

Saw a Sternotherus odoratus, caught by the neck and hung in the fork between a twig and main trunk of a black willow, about two feet above water, — apparently a month or two, being nearly dry. Probably in its haste to get down had fallen and was caught. I have noticed the same thing once or twice before. 

Hear the autumnal crickets. 

At Ball’s Hill see five summer ducks, a brood now grown, feeding amid the pads on the opposite side of the river, with a whitish ring, perhaps nearly around neck. A rather shrill squeaking quack when they go off. 

It is remarkable how much more game you will see if you are in the habit of sitting in the fields and woods. As you pass along with a noise it hides itself, but presently comes forth again. 

The Ludwigia spharocarpa out maybe a week. I was obliged to wade to it all the way from the shore, the meadow-grass cutting my feet above and making them smart. You must wear boots here.

The lespedeza with short heads, how long? These great meadows through which I wade have a great abundance of hedge-hyssop now in bloom in the water. Small St. John’s-worts and elodeas, lanceolate loosestrife, arrow heads, small climbing bellflower, also horse-mint on the drier clods. These all over the meadow. 

I see seven or eight nighthawks together; dull-buff breasts, with tails short and black beneath. 

The mole cricket creaks along the shore. 

Meadow-haying on all hands.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1855

Hear the autumnal crickets . . . The mole cricket creaks along the shore. See  August 6, 1854 (“.This anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon.”);  see also August 4, 1851 ("I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn."); August 18, 1856 “I hear the steady (not intermittent) shrilling of apparently the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound.”) and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

The Ludwigia spharocarpa out maybe a week.  See August 1, 1856 ("Ludwigia sphaerocarpa apparently a week out, a foot and a half to two feet high.") See also Gobotany — round-pod water-primrose

 

Small St. John’s-worts and elodeas, lanceolate loosestrife, arrow heads, small climbing bellflower, also horse-mint . . . all over the meadow. See August 13, 1856 (“Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime? — The polygala roots, blue-curls, wormwood, pennyroyal, Solidago odora, rough sunflowers, horse-mint, etc., etc. Does not the season require this tonic? ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

I see seven or eight nighthawks together See . August 2, 1854 ("The nighthawk flies low , skimming over the ground now "): see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk

Meadow-haying on all hands. See August 6, 1858 ("We pass haymakers in every meadow,");   August 7, 1854 ("A great part of the farmers of Concord are now in the meadows, and toward night great loads of hay are seen rolling slowly along the river’s bank,"); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

August 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 6

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

May day -- an unaccountable sweetness as of flowers in the air.

Rained some in the night; cloudy in the forenoon; clears up in the afternoon. 

P. M. — By boat with Sophia to Conantum, a maying. 

The water has gone down very fast and the grass has sprung up. There is a strong, fresh marsh scent wafted from the meadows, much like the salt marshes. We, sail with a smart wind from the northeast, yet it is warm enough. 

Horse-mint is seen springing up, and for two or three days at the bottom of the river and on shore. 

At Hill Shore the Anemone nemoralis to-morrow. See none wide open. 

The myrtle-bird is one of the commonest and tamest birds now. It catches insects like a pewee, darting off from its perch and returning to it, and sings something like a-chill chill, chill chill, chill chill, a-twear, twill twill twee, or it may be all tw — not loud; a little like the F. hyemalis, or more like pine warbler, —rapid, and more and more intense as it advances. 

There is an unaccountable sweetness as of flowers in the air, — a true May day. 

Raw and drizzling in the morning. The grackle still.

What various brilliant and evanescent colors on the surface of this agitated water, now, as we are crossing Willow Bay, looking toward the half-concealed sun over the foam-spotted flood! It reminds me of the sea. 

At Clamshell, the Viola blanda. I do not look for pollen. I find a clamshell five inches long (wanting one sixteenth) and more than two and a half inches broad and two inches thick. 

What that little dusky colored lichen on the ground at Clamshell end ditch, with a sort of triangular green fruit? or marchantia? 

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, but one against a green pine wood is much brighter. 

Thalictrum anemonoides at Conant Cliff. Did not look for pollen. 

Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? Is it owing to the wind showing the under sides of the needles? Methinks you do not see it in the winter. 

Went to Garfield’s for the hawk of yesterday. It was nailed to the barn in terrorem and as a trophy. He gave it to me with an egg. He called it the female, and probably was right, it was so large. He tried in vain to shoot the male, which I saw circling about just out of gunshot and screaming, while he robbed the nest. He climbed the tree when I was there yesterday afternoon, the tallest white pine or other tree in its neighborhood, over a swamp, and found two young, which he thought not more than a fortnight old,—with only down, at least no feathers,—and one addled egg, also three or four white-bellied or deer mouse (Mus leucopus), a perch, and a sucker, and a gray rabbit’s skin. He had seen squirrels, etc., in other nests. These fishes were now stale. I found the remains of a partridge under the tree. 

The reason I did not see my hawks at Well Meadow last year was that he found and broke up their nest there, containing five eggs.

The hawk measures exactly 22 1/2 inches in length and 4 feet 4 1/2 inches in alar extent, and weighs 3 1/4 pounds. The ends of closed wings almost two inches short of end of tail. The wing extends nearly two feet from the body, and is 10 3/4 inches wide; from flexure is 15 3/4 inches. [etc.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 1, 1855

There is an unaccountable sweetness as of flowers in the air, — a true May day. See May 6, 1855 ("that unaccountable fugacious fragrance, as of all flowers, bursting forth in air,. . .the general fragrance of the year.. . . It surpasses all particular fragrances."); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower. ”) May 16, 1852 (“The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose. A fine, delicious fragrance, which will come to the senses only when it will.”).

Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? See February 10, 1860 ("I see that Wheildon's pines are rocking and showing their silvery under sides as last spring, — their first awakening, as it were. ")February 25, 1860 ("I noticed yesterday the first conspicuous silvery sheen from the needles of the white pine waving in the wind."); April 29, 1852 ("The pines have an appearance they have not worn before, yet not easy to describe. The mottled sunlight and shade, seen looking into the woods, is more like summer.”);  May 18, 1852 ("the dark-green pines, wonderfully distinct, near and erect, with their distinct dark stems, spiring tops, regularly disposed branches, and silvery light on their needles.”). February, 5, 1852 ("The boughs, feathery boughs, of the white pines, tier above tier, reflect a silvery light against the darkness of the grove, as if both the silvery-lighted and greenish bough and the shadowy intervals of the shade behind belong to one tree.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons , White Pines