A Book of the Seasons: Cinquefoil in Autumn

 I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

I am not ashamed to be contemporary with the Norway cinquefoil.

This plant acts not an obscure, but essential, part

in the revolution of the seasons.

August 30, 1851

August 17.  Cow-wheat and indigo-weed still in bloom by the dry wood-path-side, and Norway cinquefoil.   August 17, 1851

August 25.  Silvery cinquefoil now begins to show itself commonly again. Perhaps it is owing to the rain, spring like, which we have in August. August 25, 1856

August 28.  Potentilla Norvegica again. August 28, 1856

August 30.  I perceive in the Norway cinquefoil (Potentilla Norvegica), now nearly out of blossom, that the alternate five leaves of the calyx are closing over the seeds to protect them.  There is one door closed, of the closing year. Thus all the Norway cinquefoils in the world have curled back their calyx leaves, their warm cloaks, when now their flowering season was past, over their progeny, from the time they were created! It is as good as if I saw the great globe go round. I am not ashamed to be contemporary with the Norway cinquefoil. This plant acts not an obscure, but essential, part in the revolution of the seasons. May I perform my part as well!  August 30, 1851

September 1.  Methinks the silvery cinquefoil is of late much more abundant. September 1, 1853

September 19. I see the oxalis and the tree primrose and the Norway cinquefoil and the prenanthes and the Epilobium coloratum and the cardinal-flower and the small hypericum and yarrow, and I think it is the Ranunculus repens, between Ripley Hill and river, with spotted leaves lingering still. September 19, 1852

September 23.  [Near Bangor]  Saw Aster undulatus, Solidago nemoralis, fragrant everlasting, silvery cinquefoil, small white birch, Lobelia inflata, both kinds of primrose, low cudweed, lactuca, Polygonum cilinode (apparently out of bloom), yellow oxalis. September 23, 1853

September 28. This is the commencement, then, of the second spring. Violets, Potentilla Canadensis, lambkill, wild rose, yellow lily, etc., etc., begin again  September 28, 1852

October 2.  There is a more or less general reddening of the leaves at this season, down to the cinquefoil and mouse-ear, sorrel and strawberry under our feet. October 2, 1857

October 9.  The hoary cinquefoil in blossom. October 9, 1851

October 9.  Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.  October 9, 1852

October 12. Yesterday afternoon, saw by the brook-side above Emerson's the dwarf primrose in blossom, the Norway cinquefoil and fall dandelions which are now drying up, the houstonia, buttercups, small goldenrods, and various asters, more or less purplish . . . The Anemone nemorosa in bloom and the Potentilla sarmentosa, or running cinquefoil, which springs in April, now again springing. October 12, 1851

October 21.  Silvery cinquefoil, hedge-mustard, and clover.  October 21, 1852

November 1.  The cinquefoil on Conantum. November 1, 1851

November 3.  To-day I see yarrow, very bright; red clover; autumnal dandelion; the silvery potentilla, and one Canadensis and the Norvegica.  November 3, 1853

November 6. Still the Canada snapdragon, yarrow, autumnal dandelion, tansy, shepherd's-purse, silvery cinquefoil, witch-hazel. November 6, 1853

November 9.  Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata (flat in a brook), yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus, etc. A late three ribbed goldenrod, with large serratures in middle of the narrow leaves, ten or twelve rays. Potentilla argentea.   November 9, 1852

November 19.  There are also many of the common cinquefoil with its leaves five inches asunder, dangling down five or six feet over the same rock.  November 19, 1857

November 23. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse, etc.   November 23, 1852

December 23.  At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, mullein, columbine, veronica, thyme-leaved sandwort, spleenwort, strawberry, buttercup, radical johnswort, mouse-ear, radical pinweeds, cinquefoils, checkerberry, Wintergreen, thistles, catnip, Turritis stricta especially fresh and bright.  December 23, 1855

December 31.   Potentilla Norvegica appears to have some sound seed in its closed heads.  December 31, 1859

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Cinquefoil in Autumn

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

https://tinyurl.com/HDTcinque

A Book of the Seasons: November 19 (gossamer days, gathering nuts and cranberries, november flowers & botany, cold and spitting snow)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

November 19

November 19, 2021

Indian summer –

has it not fine calm spring days

answering to it?

November 19, 1853

Find my boat covered 

with spiders whose fine lines soon 

stretch from side to side. 

November 19. 1853 

More's Wood, old oak trees

half a mile east of Wayland – 

behind the grave-yard.

November 19, 1860 

These nuts not gathered – 

one who used to get them has 

committed suicide.

November 19, 1858

November 19, 2016

This is a very pleasant and warm Indian-summer afternoon. Methinks we have not had one like it since October.  November 19, 1853

This, too, is a gossamer day, though it is not particularly calm. November 19, 1853 

My boat I find to be covered with spiders, whose fine lines soon stretch from side to side.   November 19, 1853

What is the peculiarity of the Indian summer? From the 14th to the 21st October inclusive, this year, was perfect Indian summer; and this day the next?  November 19, 1853

Methinks that any particularly pleasant and warmer weather after the middle of October is thus called. Has it not fine, calm spring days answering to it?  November 19, 1853

Mr. Bradshaw. . . tells me of a small oak wood of old trees called More's, half a mile east of Wayland, behind the grave-yard. November 19, 1860

Mocker-nutting . . .I shook the trees. It is just the time to get them. How hard they rattle down, like stones! There is a harmony between this stony fruit and these hard, tough limbs which bear it.  November 19, 1858

Those long mocker-nuts appear not to have got well ripe this year. They do not shed their husks, and the meat is mostly skinny and soft and flabby. Perhaps the season has been too cold . . .The husks of one tree scarcely gaped open at all, and could not be removed. November 19, 1858

I did not think at first why these nuts had not been gathered, but I suspect it may be because Puffer, who probably used to get them, has committed suicide.  November 19, 1858

I see many acorn and other nut shells which in past years have been tucked into clefts in the rocks.  November 19, 1857

In Stow's sprout-land west of railroad cut, I see where a mouse which has a hole under a stump has eaten out clean the insides of the little Prinos verticillatus berries.  What pretty fruit for the mice, these bright prinos berries! November 19, 1857

They run up the twigs in the night and gather this shining fruit, take out the small seeds, and eat their kernels at the entrance to their burrows. The ground is strewn with them there. November 19, 1857

Going along close under the Cliffs, I see a dozen or more low blackberry vines dangling down a perpendicular rock at least eight feet high, and blown back and forth, with leaves every six inches, and one or two have reached the ground and taken firm root there. November 19, 1857

There are also many of the common cinquefoil with its leaves five inches asunder, dangling down five or six feet over the same rock. November 19, 1857

Autumnal dandelion quite fresh. Tansy very fresh yesterday  November 19, 1853

Now that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen, it begins to appear what is evergreen the partridge-berry and checkerberry, and winter-green leaves even, are more conspicuous.  November 19, 1850 

The lambkill and water andromeda are turned quite dark red where much exposed; in shelter are green yet.  November 19, 1858

Up river in boat to Hubbard's meadow, cranberrying. They redden all the lee shore, the water being still apparently at the same level with the 16th.  November 19, 1853 

Got a bushel and a half of cranberries, mixed with chaff.  November 19, 1853

A cold, gray day, once spitting snow. Water froze in tubs enough to bear last night. November 19, 1855

I was surprised to see how much the hickory-tops had been bent and split, apparently by ice, tough as they are. They seem to have suffered more than evergreens do. November 19, 1858

November 19, 2016

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Hickory

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Lambkill (Kalmia augustifolia)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Checkerberry

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Partridge-berry 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Moods

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November

November 19, 2016

May 17, 1858 (“While I was measuring the tree, Puffer came along, and I had a long talk with him, standing under the tree in the cool sprinkling rain till we shivered.”) 

October 20, 1856 ("I think that all spiders can walk on water, for when, last summer, I knocked one off my boat by chance, he ran swiftly back to the boat and climbed up, as if more to avoid the fishes than the water.”)

October 20, 1860 ("I examine Ebby Hubbard's old oak and pine wood. The trees may be a hundred years old.”)

November 2, 1860 ("Wetherbee's oak wood ... The trees would average probably between a hundred and fifty and two hundred years. Such a wood has got to be very rare in this neighborhood.”).

 November 3, 1858 ("The lower leaves of the water andromeda are now red, and the lambkill leaves are drooping (is it more than before?) and purplish from the effect of frost in low swamps like this.")

November 5, 1860 (Blood's oak lot.. . .This wood is a hundred to a hundred and sixty years old.)

November 6, 1854 (“It is suddenly cold. Pools frozen so as to bear.”)

November 7, 1853 (“I shook two mocker-nut trees; one just ready to drop its nuts, and most came out of the shells. But the other tree was not ready; only a part fell, and those mostly in the shells.”)

November 8, 1858 ("He committed suicide within a week, at his sister’s house in Sudbury. A boy slept in the chamber with him, and, hearing a noise, got and found __ on the floor with both his jugular veins cut.")

November 10, 1860 ("Inches Wood . . .as fine an oak wood as there is in New England.")

November 14, 1857 (“I have but little doubt that these seeds were placed there by a Mus leucopus, our most common wood mouse. ”)

November 18, 1852 ("These are cold, gray days. ")

November 18, 1858 ("Now is the time to gather the mocker-nuts.")

November 19, 2021

If you make the least correct

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

November 18<<<<<<<<  November 19  >>>>>>>> November 20

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 19

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

The ice was very thin, and the holes were perfect disks.

November 19.

Old Mr. Joseph Hosmer, who helped me to-day, said that he used to know all about the lots, but since they’ve chopped off so much, and the woods have grown up, he finds himself lost.

Thirty or forty years ago, when he went to meeting, he knew every face in the meeting-house, even the boys and girls, they looked so much like their parents; but after ten or twelve years they would have outgrown his knowledge entirely (they would have altered so), but he knew the old folks still, because they held their own and didn't alter.

Just so he could tell the boundaries of the old wood which hadn't been cut down, but the young wood altered so much in a few years that he couldn't tell anything about it.

When I asked him why the old road which went by this swamp was so roundabout, he said he would answer me as Mr. __ did him in a similar case once, “Why, if they had made it straight, they wouldn't have left any room for improvement."

Standing by Harrington's pond-hole in the swamp, which had skimmed over, we saw that there were many holes through the thin black ice, of various sizes, from a few inches to more than a foot in diameter, all of which were perfectly circular.

Mr. H. asked me if I could account for it.

As we stood considering, we jarred the boggy ground and made a dimple in the water, and this accident, we thought, betrayed the cause of it; i.e. the circular wavelets so wore off the edges of the ice when once a hole was made.

The ice was very thin, and the holes were perfect disks.

But what jarred the ground and shook the water?

Perhaps the wind which shook the spruce and pine trees which stood in the quaking ground, as well as the little life in the water itself, and the wind on the ice and water itself.

There was a more permanent form created by the dimple, but not yet a shellfish.



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 19, 1851 

Harrington's pond-hole in the swamp.(aka Harrington’s Mud-hole Harrington’s Pool) -- This boggy pool on the north edge of the Ministerial Swamp is/was notable for its uncommon bog plants – such as Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia purpurea) and Black Spruce (Picea mariana) ~ Thoreau Place Names A Guide to Place Names in Concord and Lincoln, MA in the Journal of Henry David Thoreau compiled by Ray Angelo.  See November 24, 1851 ("Found on the south side of the swamp the Lygodium palmatum, which Bigelow calls the only climbing fern in our latitude, an evergreen"); August 28, 1860 ("The Lycopodium inundatum common by Harrington's mud-hole, Ministerial Swamp.")

There is a harmony between this stony fruit and these hard, tough limbs which bear it.

November 19. 

P. M. — Mocker-nutting, to Conantum. 

The lambkill and water andromeda are turned quite dark red where much exposed; in shelter are green yet. 

Those long mocker-nuts appear not to have got well ripe this year. They do not shed their husks, and the meat is mostly skinny and soft and flabby. Perhaps the season has been too cold. 

I shook the trees. It is just the time to get them. How hard they rattle down, like stones! There is a harmony between this stony fruit and these hard, tough limbs which bear it. 

I was surprised to see how much the hickory-tops had been bent and split, apparently by ice, tough as they are. They seem to have suffered more than evergreens do. 

The husks of one tree scarcely gaped open at all, and could not be removed. 

I did not think at first why these nuts had not been gathered, but I suspect it may be because Puffer, who probably used to get them, has committed suicide.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 19, 1858

I shook the trees. It is just the time to get them. See November 18, 1858 ("Now is the time to gather the mocker-nuts.") November 7, 1853 (“I shook two mocker-nut trees; one just ready to drop its nuts, and most came out of the shells. But the other tree was not ready; only a part fell, and those mostly in the shells.”)

Puffer has committed suicide. See May 17, 1858 (“While I was measuring the tree, Puffer came along, and I had a long talk with him, standing under the tree in the cool sprinkling rain till we shivered.”) See also  November 8, 1858 ("He committed suicide within a week, at his sister’s house in Sudbury. A boy slept in the chamber with him, and, hearing a noise, got and found __ on the floor with both his jugular veins cut.")

Under the Cliffs

November 19. 

P. M. – To Cliffs. 

In Stow's sprout-land west of railroad cut, I see where a mouse which has a hole under a stump has eaten out clean the insides of the little Prinos verticillatus berries. These may be the doubtful seeds of the 14th. What pretty fruit for the mice, these bright prinos berries! They run up the twigs in the night and gather this shining fruit, take out the small seeds, and eat their kernels at the entrance to their burrows. The ground is strewn with them there. 

Turning up a stone on Fair Haven Hill, I find many small dead crickets about the edges, which have endeavored to get under it and apparently have been killed by the frost; quite under it and alive, two or three small purplish-brown caterpillars; and many little ants, quite active, with their white grubs, in spacious galleries, somewhat semicylindrical, whose top often was the bottom of the stone. You would think they had been made by a worm. 

Going along close under the Cliffs, I see a dozen or more low blackberry vines dangling down a perpendicular rock at least eight feet high, and blown back and forth, with leaves every six inches, and one or two have reached the ground and taken firm root there. 

There are also many of the common cinquefoil with its leaves five inches asunder, dangling down five or six feet over the same rock.

I see many acorn and other nut shells which in past years have been tucked into clefts in the rocks.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 19, 1857

These may be the doubtful seeds of the 14th. See November 14, 1857 (“I have but little doubt that these seeds were placed there by a Mus leucopus, our most common wood mouse. ”) See also
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

I find many small dead crickets. See November 22, 1851 ("He turned over a stone, and I saw under it many crickets and ants still lively,"); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November (Listening for the Last Cricket)

Many little ants, quite active, with their white grubs, in spacious galleries. ee November 15, 1857 (“My walk is the more lonely when I perceive that there are no ants now upon their hillocks in field or wood. These are deserted mounds. They have commenced their winter's sleep.”); November 22, 1851 (", He turned over a stone, and I saw under it many crickets and ants still lively, which had gone into winter quarters there apparently. There were many little galleries leading under the stone, indenting the hardened earth like veins")

The common cinquefoil dangling down over the rock. See May 1, 1854 (“At Lee's Cliff find the early cinquefoil”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Cinquefoil in Autumn

A cold, gray day.

November 19.

A cold, gray day, once spitting snow. Water froze in tubs enough to bear last night. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 19, 1855

A cold, gray day. See November 18, 1852 ("These are cold, gray days.") See also November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly . . . [a]fter a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Days (now there is nothing but how bright the stars)

Water froze in tubs enough to bear last night. See November 6, 1854 (“It is suddenly cold. Pools frozen so as to bear.”); November 25, 1857 ("Pools under the north sides of hills are frozen pretty thick")

A Book of the Seasons: November 19.

November 19.

November 19, 2021

Indian summer –

has it not fine calm spring days

answering to it?

November 19, 1853

November 19, 2016

Find my boat covered 

with spiders whose fine lines soon 

stretch from side to side. 

November 19. 1853 

These nuts not gathered – 

one who used to get them has 

committed suicide.

November 19, 1858

Oak wood of old trees

half a mile east of Wayland – 

behind the grave-yard. 

November 19, 1860 

November 19, 2016

November 19, 2016

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

November 19, 2014

November 19, 2021

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 © 2009-2019

What is the peculiarity of the Indian summer?

November 19

Up river in boat to Hubbard's meadow, cranberrying. They redden all the lee shore, the water being still apparently at the same level with the 16th. 

This is a very pleasant and warm Indian-summer afternoon. Methinks we have not had one like it since October. 

November 19, 2023

This, too, is a gossamer day, though it is not particularly calm. My boat I find to be covered with spiders, whose fine lines soon stretch from side to side. 

Got a bushel and a half of cranberries, mixed with chaff.

What is the peculiarity of the Indian summer? From the 14th to the 21st October inclusive, this year, was perfect Indian summer; and this day the next?

Methinks that any particularly pleasant and warmer weather after the middle of October is thus called. Has it not fine, calm spring days answering to it?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 19, 1853

This, too, is a gossamer day, though it is not particularly calm. See ? November 1, 1851("Why should this day be so distinguished?"), November 3, 1857 ("I see against the sunlight, where the twigs of a maple and black birch intermingle, a little gossamer or fine cobwebs, but much more the twigs, especially of the birch, waving slightly, reflect the light like cobwebs. It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear."); November 15, 1858 ("Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November"). See also November 3, 1853 ("There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

What is the peculiarity of the Indian summer?  October 14, 1859 ("A fine Indian-summer day. The 6th and 10th were quite cool, and any particularly warm days since may be called Indian summer (?), I think");. October 31, 1858 (" It is a fine day, Indian-summer-like, and there is considerable gossamer on the causeway and blowing from all trees. That warm weather of the 19th and 20th was, methinks, the same sort of weather with the most pleasant in November (which last alone some allow to be Indian summer)."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer

My boat I find to be covered with spiders, whose fine lines soon stretch from side to side. See October 20, 1856 ("I think that all spiders can walk on water, for when, last summer, I knocked one off my boat by chance, he ran swiftly back to the boat and climbed up, as if more to avoid the fishes than the water.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

November 19. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 19

Indian summer –

has it not fine calm spring days

answering to it?

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The peculiarity of the Indian summer

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/hdt-531119