To see what was primitive about our Concord River.

September 19.    

Monday. [The Maine Woods]

I looked very narrowly at the vegetation as we glided along close to the shore, and now and then made Joe turn aside for me to pluck a plant, that I might see what was primitive about our Concord River.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1853 

See September 21, 1856 ("I have within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange.") See also August 30, 1856 ("I shall never find in the wilds of Labrador any greater wildness than in some recess in Concord"); September 2, 1856  ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, . . .  prepared for strange things."); July 31, 1857 ("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,"); November 20, 1857 ("We only need travel enough to give our intellects an airing."); November 23, 1860 ("I sail the unexplored sea of Concord")

I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time

August 26. 

The dust is laid, the streets washed, the leaves — the first ripe crop — fallen, owing to yesterday's copious rain. It is clearer weather, and the creak of the crickets is more distinct, just as the air is clearer. 

The trees look greener and fresher, not only because their leaves are washed and erected, but because they have for the most part shed their yellow and sere leaves. 

The front-rank polygonum is now perhaps in its prime. Where it forms an island in the river it is surmounted in the middle or highest part by the P. hydropiperoides. 

P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill. 

Elder-berries have fairly begun to be ripe, as also the Cornus sericea berries, and the dull-reddish leaves of the last begin to be conspicuous. 

The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound.

 Potato vines are generally browning and rank. Roman wormwood prevails over them; also erechthites, in new and boggy ground, and butterweed. These lusty natives prevail in spite of the weeding hoe, and take possession of the field at last. Potato vines have taken a veil of wormwood. 

The barn-yard grass and various panics (sanguinale, capillare, and bottle-grass) now come forward with a rush and take possession of the cultivated fields, partly abandoned for the present by the farmer and gardener. 

How singular that the Polygonum aviculare should grow so commonly and densely about back doors where the earth is trodden, bordering on paths ! Hence properly called door-grass. I am not aware that it prevails in any other places. 

The pontederia leaves are already slightly imbrowned, though the flowers are still abundant. 

The river is a little cooled by yesterday's rain, and considerable heart-leaf (the leaves mainly) is washed up. 

I begin to think of a thicker coat and appreciate the warmth of the sun. I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time. At any rate, they surprise me. There may be cool veins in the air now, any day. 

Now for dangle-berries. 

Also Viburnum nudum fruit has begun. 

I saw a cherry-bird peck from the middle of its upright (vertical) web on a bush one of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders within a rod of me. It dropped to the ground, and then the bird picked it up. It left a hole or rent in the middle of the web. The spider cunningly spreads his net for feebler insects, and then takes up his post in the centre, but perchance a passing bird picks him from his conspicuous station. 

I perceived for the first time, this afternoon, in one place, a slight mouldy scent. There are very few fungi in a dry summer like this.

The Uvularia sessilifolia is for the most part turned yellow, with large green fruit, or even withered and brown. 

Some medeola is quite withered. Perhaps they are somewhat frost-bitten. 

I see a goldfinch eating the seeds of the coarse barn yard grass, perched on it. It then goes off with a cool twitter. 

Notice arrowhead leaves very curiously eaten by some insect. They are dotted all over in lines with small roundish white scales, — which your nail will remove, and then a scar is seen beneath, — as if some juice had exuded from each puncture and then hardened. 

The first fall rain is a memorable occasion, when the river is raised and cooled, and the first crop of sere and yellow leaves falls. The air is cleared; the dog- days are over; sun-sparkles are seen on water; crickets sound more distinct; saw-grass reveals its spikes in the shorn fields; sparrows and bobolinks fly in flocks more and more. Farmers feel encouraged about their late potatoes and corn. Mill-wheels that have rested for want of water begin to revolve again. Meadow-haying is over. 

The first significant event (for a long time) was the frost of the 17th. That was the beginning of winter, the first summons to summer. Some of her forces succumbed to it. The second event was the rain of yesterday. 

My neighbor told me yesterday that about four inches of rain had fallen, for he sent his man for a pail that was left in the garden during the rain, and there was about four inches depth of water in it. I inquired if the pail had upright sides. "No," he said, "it was flaring ! ! " However, according to another, there was full four inches in a tub. 

Leersia or cut-grass in prime at Potter's holes. 

That first frost on the 17th was the first stroke of winter aiming at the scalp of summer. Like a stealthy and insidious aboriginal enemy, it made its assault just before daylight in some deep and far-away hollow and then silently withdrew. Few have seen the drooping plants, but the news of this stroke circulates rapidly through the village. Men communicate it with a tone of warning. The foe is gone by sunrise, but some fearful neighbors who have visited their potato and cranberry patches report this stroke. The implacable and irresistible foe to all this tender greenness is not far off, nor can we be sure, any month in the year, that some scout from his low camp may not strike down the tenderest of the children of summer. 

The earliest and latest frosts are not distinguishable. This foe will go on steadily increasing in strength and boldness, till his white camps will be pitched over all the fields, and we shall be compelled to take refuge in our strongholds, with some of summer's withered spoils stored up in barns, maintaining ourselves and our herds on the seeds and roots and withered grass which we have embarned. Men in anticipation of this time have been busily collecting and curing the green blades all the country over, while they have still some nutriment in them. Cattle and horses have been dragging homeward their winter's food.

A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum, Hubbard's meadow-side, Drosera Flat, not out.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 26, 1859


Elder-berries have fairly begun to be ripe. See note to August 23, 1856 (Elder-berries, now looking purple, are weighing down the bushes along fences by their abundance. ")
  
Cornus sericea berries See August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river. .”)

The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound. See August 23, 1857 ("The mole cricket nowadays"); August 22, 1856 ("The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore."); September 11, 1855 ("Loudly the mole cricket creaks by mid-afternoon.")

Viburnum nudum fruit has begun. See August 25, 1854 ("The Viburnum nudum berries, in various stages, — green, deep-pink, and also deep-blue, not purple or ripe, — are very abundant at Shadbush Meadow. They appear to be now in their prime and are quite sweet, but have a large seed. Interesting for the various colors on the same bush and in the same cluster.")

One of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders. See September 12, 1858 ("They are the yellow-backed spider, commonly large and stout but of various sizes. I count sixty-four such webs there, and in each case the spider occupies the centre, head downward.")

A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum. See August 28, 1860 ("The Lycopodium inundatum common by Harrington's mud-hole, Ministerial Swamp.") 

[Northern bog-clubmoss is by far the most common species of bog-clubmoss in New England.  The tops of the erect shoots are distinctively widened. Its diminutive size, thin horizontal shoots, and entire trophophylls (sterile leaves) quickly distinguish most populations; it frequently occurs in the absence of other species or hybrids. ~ GoBotany]

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums

Another new plant anticipated. Naming Ledum Swamp.

February 4. 

P. M. – To C. Miles Swamp. 

Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole, growing with the Andromeda calyculata, Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, etc. 

The A. Polifolia is very abundant about the pond-hole, some of it very narrow-leaved and dark, even black, above, as if burnt. 

The ledum bears a general resemblance to the water andromeda, with its dark reddish-purplish, or rather mulberry, leaves, reflexed; but nearer it is distinguished by its coarseness, the perfect tent form of its upper leaves, and the large, conspicuous terminal roundish (strictly oval) red buds, nearly as big as the swamp pink's, but rounded. The woolly stem for a couple of inches beneath the bud is frequently bare and conspicuously club-shaped. The rust on the under sides of the leaves seems of a lighter color than that of Maine. The seed-vessels (which open at the base first) still hold on. 

This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. When I showed it to a teamster, he was sure that he had seen it often in the woods, but the sight of the woolly under side staggered him. 

There are many small spruce thereabouts, with small twigs and leaves, an abnormal growth, reminding one of strange species of evergreen from California, China, etc. 

I brought some home and had a cup of tea made, which, in spite of a slight piny or turpentine flavor, I thought unexpectedly good. 

An abundance of nesaea on the east edge of the pond-hole (call it Ledum Pond-hole); and is that a lysimachia mingled with it?

The ledum does not grow amid the maples, nor, indeed, does the A. Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, nor even the water andromeda abundantly. It bears no more shade than that of the spruce trees, which do not prevail over the above-named shrubbery. 

As usual with the finding of new plants, I had a presentiment that I should find the ledum in Concord. It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 4, 1858

Discover the Ledum latiforium ....The rust on the under sides of the leaves seems of a lighter color than that of Maine. See July 25, 1857 (“Here [at Kimeo], among others, were the . . . Oxalis Acetosella, still occasionally in flower; Labrador tea (Ledum latifolium), out of bloom; Kalmia glauca, etc., etc., close to the track. ”); August 24, 1857 (“We waded into Coos Swamp on the south side the turnpike [at Natick] to find the ledum, but did not succeed. ”); June 19, 1856 (“Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms. Among which noticed ...Ledum latifolium, from White Mountains, rather 'broader—leafed than mine from Maine.”)  ~~ Recently reclassified from the genus Ledum, labrador-tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum) is a diminutive shrub of cool, wet swamps, spruce forests, and muskeg. It is recognized by its clusters of tiny white flowers and its folded-under leaves with brown hairs on the undersides. This shrub is named Labrador-tea because its aromatic leaves were commonly brewed as a tea by northern native Americans. Moose browse the leaves and twigs. ~ Go Botany

The A. Polifolia is very abundant about the pond-hole, some of it very narrow-leaved and dark, even black, above, as if burnt. See February 12, 1858 ("There is, apparently, more of the Andromeda Polifolia in that swamp than anywhere else in Concord."); November 15,1857 ("At C. Miles Swamp [f]ind plenty of Andromeda Polifolia ... where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood”). See also July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom.): February 17, 1854 ("In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore.)

This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. See August 19, 1856 (“a careless observer would look through their thin flowery panicles without observing any flower at all.”)

There are many small spruce thereabouts, with small twigs and leaves, an abnormal growth, See November 15,1857 ("At C. Miles Swamp .. where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood”); February 12, 1858 ("About the ledum pond-hole there is an abundance of that abnormal growth of the spruce. . . , which have an impoverished look, altogether forming a broom-like mass, very much like a heath."); June 13, 1858 ("I see a song sparrow's nest here in a little spruce just by the mouth of the ditch."); August 8, 1858 ("The peculiar plants of [Ledum] swamp are, then, as I remember, these nine: spruce, Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, Ledum latifolium, Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, Platanthera blephari glottis, Scheuchzeria palustris, Eriophorum 'vaginatum.");' September 6, 1858 ("That swamp is a singularly wild place, without any natural outlet. I hear of a marsh hawk’s nest there this summer. I see great spiders there of an uncommon kind, whose webs —the main supporting line — stretch six feet in the clear from spruce to spruce, as high as my head, with a dense web of the usual form some fifteen inches in diameter beneath."); October 23, 1858 ("The spruce is changed and falling, but is brown and inconspicuous. A man at work on the Ledum Pool, draining it, says that. . . he had found three growths of spruce, one above another, there.")

It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery. See  July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. Within a week R. W. E. showed me a slip of this in a botany, as a great rarity which George Bradford brought from Watertown. I had long been interested in it by Linnaeus's account. I now find it in abundance.”); January 9, 1855 (“Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots very much like the Andromeda Polifolia, amid sphagnum, lambkill, Andromeda calyculata, blueberry bushes, etc., though there is very little to be seen above the snow. It is, I have little doubt, the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia.”);  September 2, 1856 (“It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, perhaps wading in some remote swamp where I have just found something novel and feel more than usually remote from the town. Or some rare plant which for some reason has occupied a strangely prominent place in my thoughts for some time will present itself. My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.”); November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality, and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it, and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”); August 22, 1860 ("I never find a remarkable Indian relic but I have first divined its existence, and planned the discovery of it. Frequently I have told myself distinctly what it was to be before I found it.”); and note to July 2, 1857 ("We find only the world we look for.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 4

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

A new plant.

September 13. 

Sunday. 

Nabalus Fraseri, top of Cliffs, — a new plant, — yet in prime and not long out. The nabalus family generally, apparently now in prime.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 13, 1857

Nabalus Fraseri, top of Cliffs, — a new plant. See September 6, 1851 ("Prenanthes alba; this Gray calls Nabalus albus, white lettuce or rattlesnake-root. Also I seem (?) to have found Nabalus Fraseri, or lion's-foot.”) Nabalus fraseri = Prenanthes serpentaria  Botanical Index to Thoreau's Journal

The nabalus family generally, apparently now in prime. See July 28, 1856 ("Nabalus albus, a day or two.”); September 4, 1857 ("I see prenanthes radical leaf turned pale-yellow.”);August 27, 1858 ("The Nabalus albus has been out some ten days, but N. Fraseri at Walden road will not open, apparently, for some days yet.");  September 8, 1856 ("Along this path observed the Nabalus altissimus, flowers in a long panicle of axillary and terminal branches, small-flowered, now in prime.");  September 17, 1857 (“I go to Fair Haven Hill, looking at the varieties of nabalus, which have a singular prominence now in all woods and roadsides. ”); September 23, 1857 ("Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint's Pond road in the woods....”); ,

To Owl-Nest Swamp and Indian Rock

August 29. 

Spotted coral-root
Mt. Pritchard August 2018
(Avesong)

"Nearby, north, is a rocky ridge, on the east slope of which the Corallorhiza multiflora is very abundant. Call that Corallorhiza Rocks.”

August 29, 1857

Saturday. P. M. —To Owl-Nest Swamp with C.

Gerardia tenuifolia, a new plant to Concord, apparently in prime, at entrance to Owl-Nest Path and generally in that neighborhood. Also on Conantum height above orchard, two or three days later. This species grows on dry ground, or higher than the purpurea, and is more delicate. 

Got some ferns in the swamp and a small utricularia not in bloom, apparently different from that of Pleasant Meadow (vide August 18). 

The proserpinaca leaves are very interesting in the water, so finely cut. Polygonum arifolium in bloom how long? We waded amid the proserpinaca south of the wall and stood on a small bed of sphagnum, three or four feet in diameter, which rose above the surface. 

Some kind of water rat had its nest or retreat in this wet sphagnum, and being disturbed, swam off to the shore from under us. He was perhaps half as large again as a mole, or nearly, and somewhat grayish. 

The large and broad leafed sium which grows here is, judging from its seed, the same with the common. 

I find the calla going to seed, but still the seed is green. 

That large, coarse, flag-like reed is apparently Carex comosa; now gone to seed, though only one is found with seed still on it, under water. 

The Indian Rock, further west, is upright, or over hanging two feet, and a dozen feet high. Against this the Indians camped.

It has many very large specimens of the Umbilicaria Dillenii, some six or eight inches in diameter, dripping with moisture to-day, like leather aprons hanging to the side of the rock, olive-green (this moist day), curled under on the edges and showing the upper side; but when dry they curl upward and show the crocky under sides. 

Nearby, north, is a rocky ridge, on the east slope of which the Corallorhiza multiflora is very abundant. Call that Corallorhiza Rocks.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 29, 1857

Owl-Nest Swamp. See June 24, 1857 ("Went to Farmer's Swamp to look for the owl's nest Farmer had found. “)  Owl-Nest Swamp and Calla Swamp are the same, located south of Bateman’s Pond .

I find the calla going to seed. . . June 24, 1857 ("Found [in Owl-Nest Swamp] the Calla palustris, out of bloom") and note to July 2, 1857 ("Having found this in one place, I now find it in another. ")

Corallorhiza multiflora [spotted coral root]... See note to August 13, 1857

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... .")

Though I find only one new plant I am bewildered, as it were, by a variety of new things.

August 16.

8 A.M. — To Cassia Field. 

Chenopodium hybridum, a tall rank weed, five feet at least, dark-green, with a heavy (poisonous ?) odor compared to that of stramonium; great maple(?)- shaped leaves. How deadly this peculiar heavy odor!

Diplopappus linariifolius, apparently several days. 

Ambrosia pollen now begins to yellow my clothes. 

Cynoglossum officinale, a long time, mostly gone to seed, at Bull's Path and north roadside below Leppleman's. Its great radical leaves made me think of smooth mullein. The flower has a very peculiar, rather sickening odor; Sophia thought like a warm apple pie just from the oven (I did not perceive this). A pretty flower, however. I thoughtlessly put a handful of the nutlets into my pocket with my handkerchief. But it took me a long time to pick them out my handkerchief when I got home, and I pulled out many threads in the process. 

At roadside opposite Leighton's, just this side his barn, Monarda fistulosa, wild bergamot, nearly done, with terminal whorls and fragrance mixed of balm and summer savory. The petioles are not ciliated like those on Strawberry Hill road. 

Wild Senna ~ wikipedia

(Wild Senna = Cassia = Cassia hebecarpa = Sennahebecarpa = Northern wild senna)

Am surprised to find the cassia so obvious and abundant. Can see it yellowing the field twenty-five rods off, from top of hill. It is perhaps the prevailing shrub over several acres of moist rocky meadow pasture on the brook; grows in bunches, three to five feet high (from the ground this year), in the neighborhood of alders, hardhack, elecampane, etc. 

The lower flowers are turning white and going to seed, — pods already three inches long, — a few upper not yet opened. It resounds with the hum of bumblebees. It is branched above, some of the half-naked (of leaves) racemes twenty inches long by five or six wide. Leaves alternate, of six or eight pairs of leafets and often an odd one at base, locust-like. 

Looked as if they had shut up in the night. Mrs. Pratt says they do. E. Hoar says she has known it here since she was a child. 

The cynoglossum by roadside opposite, and, by side of tan-yard, the apparently true Mentha viridis, or spearmint, growing very rankly in a dense bed, some four feet high, spikes rather dense, one to one and a half inches long, stem often reddish, leaves nearly sessile. Say August 1st at least. 

Some elecampane with the cassia is six feet high, and blades of lower leaves twenty inches by seven or nine.  

What a variety of old garden herbs — mints, etc. — are naturalized along an old settled road, like this to Boston which the British travelled! And then there is the site, apparently, of an old garden by the tan-yard, where the spearmint grows so rankly. I am intoxicated with the fragrance. 

Though I find only one new plant (the cassia), yet old acquaintances grow so rankly, and the spearmint intoxicates me so, that I am bewildered, as it were by a variety of new things. An infinite novelty. All the roadside is the site of an old garden where fragrant herbs have become naturalized, — hounds-tongue, bergamot, spearmint, elecampane, etc. I see even the tiger lily, with its bulbs, growing by the roadside far from houses (near Leighton's graveyard).

I think I have found many new plants, and am surprised when I can reckon but one. A little distance from my ordinary walk and a little variety in the growth or luxuriance will produce this illusion. 

By the discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed. 

Amphicarpaea some time; pods seven eighths of an inch long. Mimvlus ringens four feet high, and chelone six feet high! 

Am frequently surprised to find how imperfectly water-plants are known. Even good shore botanists are out of their element on the water. I would suggest to young botanists to get not only a botany-box but a boat, and know the water-plants not so much from the shore as from the water side. 

White morning-glory up the Assabet. 

I find the dog's-bane (Apocynum androsoemifolium) bark not the nearly so strong as that of the A. cannabinum.

Amaranthus hypochondriacus, how long?

Minott says that the meadow-grass will be good for nothing after the late overflow, when it goes down. The water has steamed the grass. I see the rue all turned yellow by it prematurely. 

Bathing at Merrick's old place, am surprised to find how swift the current. Raise the river two feet above summer level and let it be running off, and you can hardly swim against it. It has fallen about fifteen inches from the height. 

My plants in press are in a sad condition; mildew has invaded them during the late damp weather, even those that were nearly dry. I find more and other plants than I counted on. Very bad weather of late for pressing plants. Give me the dry heat of July. Even growing leaves out of doors are spotted with fungi now, much more than mine in press.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 16, 1856

Diplopappus linariifolius, apparently several days. See July 29, 1852 ("That common rigid narrow-leaved faint-purplish aster in dry woods by shrub oak path, Aster linariifolius of Bigelow, but it is not savory leaved. I do not find it in Gray."); December 26, 1855 (“Weeds in the fields and the wood-paths are the most interesting. Here are asters, savory-leaved, whose flat imbricated calyxes, three quarters of an inch over, are surmounted and inclosed in a perfectly transparent icebutton, like a glass knob, through which you see the reflections of the brown calyx.”); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, 

Savory-leaved aster

Am surprised to find the cassia so obvious and abundant. See August 11, 1856 ("Mr. Bradford . . .gives me a sprig of Cassia Marilandica, wild senna, found by Minot Pratt just below Leighton's by the road side.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Wild Senna

Though I find only one new plant (the cassia), yet old acquaintances grow so rankly, and the spearmint intoxicates me so, that I am bewildered, as it were by a variety of new things. An infinite novelty. See August 8, 1852 ("No man ever makes a discovery, even an observation of the least importance, but he is advertised of the fact by a joy that surprises him"); September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, perhaps wading."); February 4, 1858 ("It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery.") November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality, and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it, and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”) See also January 27, 1857 ("The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them, or the discoverers of them, whether a sharper perception and curiosity in them led to the discovery or the greater novelty more inspired their report.")

A little distance from my ordinary walk . . . will produce this illusion. By the discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed. See February 9, 1852("A man goes to the end of his garden, inverts his head, and does not know his own cottage. The novelty is in us, and it is also in nature."); May 31, 1853 ("The fact that a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw. . . may be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive. . . The boundaries of the actual are no more fixed and rigid than the elasticity of our imaginations"); December 11, 1855 ("It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and  significance. ”)

Raise the river two feet above summer level and let it be running off, and you can hardly swim against it. See note to August 16, 1860 ("River about ten and a half inches above summer level")


August 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 16

And the spearmint

so intoxicates me that

I am bewildered.

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

 

tinyurl.com/HDTwildsenna 

 

To Assabet Bath.

August 11

I have heard since the 1st of this month the steady creaking cricket. 

Some are digging early potatoes. 

I notice a new growth of red maple sprouts, small reddish leaves surmounting light-green ones, the old being dark-green. Green lice on birches.

Aster Tradescanti, two or three days in low ground; flowers smaller than A. dumosus, densely racemed, with short peduncles or branchlets, calyx-scales narrower and more pointed.

Ammannia humilis (?) (a new plant), perhaps three weeks at northeast end of Wheeler's brush fence meadow, with small wrinkled yellowish petals with a purplish vein.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 11, 1854

I have heard since the 1st of this month the steady creaking cricket. See August 7, 1853 (" I think that within a week I have heard the alder cricket, . . .The year is in the grasp of the crickets, and they are hurling it round swiftly on its axle."); August 7, 1854 ("The cool nocturnal creak of the crickets is heard in the mid-afternoon."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

Aster tradescanti and dumosus. See August 14, 1856 ("Aster tradescanti, apparently a day or two."); August 5, 1856 ("Aster dumosus, apparently a day or two, with its large conspicuous flower-buds at the end of the branchlets and linear-spatulate involucral scales.")

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

August rain and mist contract our horizon

August 4.

P.M. — Via Turnpike to Smith's Hill. 

August 4, 2023

A still, cloudy day with from time to time a gentle August rain. Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects.

Purple gerardia, by brook. 

The autumnal dandelion is now more common. 

Ranunculus aquatilis var. fluviatilis, white petals with a yellow claw, small flowers on surface of Hosmer's ditch, west end, by Turnpike. A new plant.

The swamp blackberry on high land, ripe a day or two. 

I hear the pigeon woodpecker still, — wickoff, wickoff, wickoff, wickoff, from a neighboring oak. 

See a late rose still in flower. 

On this hill (Smith's) the bushes are black with huckleberries. They droop over the rocks with the weight and are very handsome. Now in their prime. Some glossy black, some dull black, some blue; and patches of Vaccinium vacillans intermixed.

It is already fall in low swampy woods where the cinnamon fern prevails. There are the sight and scent of beginning decay. 

I see a new growth on oak sprouts, three to six inches, with reddish leaves as in spring. Some whole trees show the lighter new growth at a distance, above the dark green. 

Cannabis sativa.

After sunset, a very low, thick, and flat white fog like a napkin, on the meadows, which ushers in a foggy night.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  August 4, 1854

A gentle August rain. Rain and mist contract our horizon. See August 4, 1852 ("A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods is in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm at this season , . . as the atmosphere is so shallow and contracted, being low-roofed with clouds, the lake as a lower heaven is much larger in proportion to it.”)

Purple gerardia, by brook. See August 20, 1852 ("The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Purple Gerardia (Gerardia purpurea)

The autumnal dandelion is now more common. See July 27, 1853 ("The autumnal dandelion now appears more abundantly within a week"); August 24, 1852 ("Autumnal dandelions are more common now. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion

The swamp blackberry on high land, ripe a day or two.  See August 6, 1856 (“Rubus hispidus ripe.”); August 15, 1852 ("The swamp blackberry begins.”); August 23, 1856 (“ At the Lincoln bound hollow, Walden, there is a dense bed of the Rubus hispidus, matting the ground seven or eight inches deep, and full of the small black fruit, now in its prime. It is especially abundant where the vines lie over a stump. Has a peculiar, hardly agreeable acid.”)

I hear the pigeon woodpecker still, — wickoff, wickoff, wickoff, wickoff.  See  August 14, 1858 ("The flicker‘s cackle, once of late."); October 5, 1857 ("The pigeon woodpecker utters his whimsical ah-week ah-week, etc., as in spring.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

See a late rose still in flower. See July 23, 1860 ("The late rose is now in prime along the river, a pale rose-color but very delicate, keeping up the memory of roses.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

The bushes are black with huckleberries . . . in their prime. Some glossy black, some dull black, some blue; and patches of Vaccinium vacillans intermixed. See August 4, 1852 “Most huckleberries and blueberries and low blackberries are in their prime now.”); August 4. 1856 (" large blue and also shining black huckleberries (Gaylussacia resinosa) of various flavors and qualities; and over all runs rampant the low blackberry (Rubus Canadensis), weighing down the thicket with its wreaths of black fruit. . . .This favorable moist weather has expanded some of the huckleberries to the size of bullets.") See also The Whortleberry Family

It is already fall in low swampy woods where the cinnamon fern prevails. See September 6, 1854 ("The cinnamon ferns along the edge of woods next the meadow are many yellow or cinnamon, or quite brown and withered.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

I see a new growth on oak sprouts. See July 14, 1852 ("Trees have commonly two growths in the year, a spring and a fall growth . . .These two growths are now visible on the oak sprouts, the second already nearly equalling the first.")

Cannabis sativa. See August 11, 1852 ("Cannabis sativa, apparently out.")

Low, thick, and flat white fog like a napkin, on the meadows, which ushers in a foggy night. See August 7, 1860 (" I am struck by the localness of the fogs. . . If we awake into a fog it does not occur to us that the inhabitants of a neighboring town may have none.")

August 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 4 

August rain and mist

contract our horizon

to the near and small.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August rain and mist

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

tinyurl.com/HDT-540805

Go to new trees and you hear new birds.

April 24.

A. M. — Up railroad. 

The river slightly risen again owing to rain of yesterday morn and day before. As I stand still listening on the frosty sleepers at Wood's crossing by the lupines, I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself.

P. M. — Up Assabet, and thence to Cedar Swamp.

The first red maple blossoms — so very red over the water — are very interesting. 

The larch will apparently blossom in one or two days at least, both its low and broad purple-coned male flowers and its purple-tipped female cones.  

The white cedar female blossoms are open, and as the brown male ones are loosened the next day in the house, I think the 25th may be called their first day. 

Hear amid the white cedars the fine, clear singing warbler of yesterday, whose harsh note I may have heard the 18th, very clear and fast. 

April 24, 2022

Go to new trees, like cedars and firs, and you hear new birds.  They increase the strangeness. Also other strange plants are found there. I have also observed that the early birds are about the early trees, like maples, alders, willows, elms, etc.   

New plant (Racemed andromeda)  flower-budded at Cedar Swamp amid the high blueberry, panicled andromeda, clethra, etc.— upright dense racemes of reddish flower-buds on reddish terminal shoots. 

See a very large hawk, slaty above and white beneath, low over river. 

The kingfisher flies with a crack cr-r-r-ack and a limping or flitting flight from tree to tree before us, and finally, after a third of a mile, circles round to our rear. He sits rather low over the water. Now that he has come I suppose that the fishes on which he preys rise within reach.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 24, 1854

The river slightly risen again. See April 22, 1857 ("The river higher than before and rising.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, People do not remember so great a flood

The first red maple blossoms — so very red over the water — are very interesting See April 24, 1857 ("I see the now red crescents of the red maples in their prime . . . above the gray stems.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

The larch will apparently blossom in one or two days. See May 1, 1854 ("The flowers of the larch which I examined on the 24th ult. have enlarged somewhat and may now certainly be considered in blossom, though the pollen is not quite distinct. I am not certain whether the 26th was not too early. The crimson scales of the female cones are still more conspicuous.") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,the Larch

Cedar Swamp and white cedar female blossom See April 23, 1856 ("The white cedar swamp consists of hummocks, now surrounded by water, where you go jumping from one to another. The fans are now dotted with the minute reddish staminate flowers, ready to open”); April 24, 1855 ("The sprigs of red cedar, now full of the buff-colored staminate flowers, like fruit, are very rich . . . [Its pollen] is a clear buff color, while that of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon.”); April 26, 1856 ("The white cedar gathered the 23d does not shed pollen in house till to-day, and I doubt if it will in swamp before to-morrow."); April 26, 1857 ("The white cedar is apparently just out. The higher up the tree, the earlier")

Go to new trees. . . and you hear new birds. They increase the strangeness. Also other strange plants are found there. See June 9, 1854 ("What musicians compose our woodland quire? They must be forever strange and interesting to me.") See also April 16, 1856 ("By the discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed."); May 29, 1856 ("Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones."); July 31, 1859 ("Where there are rare, wild, rank plants, there too some wild bird will be found.")

Singing warbler of yesterday, whose harsh note I may have heard the 18th. See April 18, 1854 ("More like the Tennessee warbler than any, methinks. Light-slate or bluish-slate head and shoulders, yellowish backward, all white beneath, and a distinct white spot on the wing; a harsh grating note[?]"); April 23, 1854 ("Had a glimpse of a very small warbler  on a pitch pine, and heard a pleasant and unusual whistle from him.")

New plant (Racemed andromeda) flower-budded. See June 3, 1857 (“The racemed andromeda (Leucothoe) has been partly killed, — the extremities of the twigs, — so that its racemes are imperfect.”);   June 8, 1856 (“I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. It is dead at top and slightly leafed below. Was it the severe winter, or cutting off the protecting evergreens?”); June 10, 1857 ("The Leucothoe racemosa, not yet generally out, but a little (it being mostly killed) a day or two.")

The kingfisher flies with a crack cr-r-r-ack. See April 23, 1854 ("A kingfisher with his crack, — cr-r-r-rack"); April 25, 1852 ("Saw the first kingfisher, and heard his most unmusical note.")  and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Kingfisher

Now that he has come I suppose that the fishes on which he preys rise within reach. See April 23, 1852 ("Vegetation . . . follows the sun. Insects . . . follow vegetation. The fishes, the small fry, start probably for this reason . . . fish hawks, etc., follow the small fry;")

Go to new trees

like cedars and firs 

and you hear new birds.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Go to new trees and you hear new birds

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/hdt570424