P. M. — To the Beeches.
October 25, 2023
I look at the willows by the causeway, east side, as I go, — Salix discolor, Torreyana, rostrata, and lucida are all almost quite bare, and the remaining leaves are yellow or yellowish. Those of the last the clearest and most conspicuous yellow. S. pedicellaris is merely yellowish, being rather green and not fallen. The S. alba at a distance looks very silvery in the light.
Now that the leaves are fallen (for a few days), the long yellow buds (often red-pointed) which sleep along the twigs of the S. discolor are very conspicuous and quite interesting, already even carrying our thoughts for ward to spring. I noticed them first on the 22d. They may be put with the azalea buds already noticed. Even bleak and barren November wears these gems on her breast in sign of the coming year. How many thoughts lie undeveloped, and as it were dormant, like these buds, in the minds of men!
This is the coolest day thus far, reminding me that I have only a half-thick coat on. The easterly wind comes cold into my ear, as yet unused to it. Yet this first decided coolness - not to say wintriness — is not only bracing but exhilarating and concentrating [to] our forces. So much the more I have a hearth and heart within me. We step more briskly, and brace ourselves against the winter.
I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare.
Near the end of the causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting. This is much fairer than the thistle-down. It apparently bursts its pods after rain especially (as yesterday’s), opening on the under side, away from succeeding rains. Half a dozen seeds or more, attached by the tips of their silks to the core of the pod, will be blown about there a long time before a strong puff launches them away, and in the meanwhile they are expanding and drying their silk.
In the cut the F. hyemalis, which has been here for a month, flits away with its sharp twitter amid the falling leaves. This is a fall sound.
At the pond the black birches are bare; how long?
Now, as you walk in woods, the leaves rustle under your feet as much as ever. In some places you walk pushing a mass before you. In others they half cover pools that are three rods long. They make it slippery climbing hills.
Now, too, for the different shades of brown, especially in sprout-lands. I see [three] kinds of oaks now, — the whitish brown of the white oak, the yellowish brown of the black oak, and the red or purplish brown [of the scarlet oak] (if it can be called brown at all, for it is not faded to brown yet and looks full of life though really withered (i. e. the shrubs) for the most part, excepting here and there leading shoots or spring twigs, which glow as bright a scarlet as ever). There is no red here, but perhaps that may be called a lighter, yellowish brown, and so distinguished from the black in color. It has more life in it now than the white and black, not withered so much. These browns are very pure and wholesome colors, far from spot and decay, and their rustling leaves call the roll for a winter campaign. How different now the rustling of these sere leaves from the soft, fluttering murmur of the same when alive! This sharp rustle warns all to go home now who are not prepared for a winter campaign.
The scarlet oak shrubs are as distinct amid the other species as before they had withered, and it is remarkable how evenly they are distributed over the hills, by some law not quite understood. Nature ever plots against Baker and Stow, Moore and Hosmer.
The black scrub oak, seen side by side with the white, is yet lighter than that.
How should we do without this variety of oak leaves, — the forms and colors? On many sides, the eye requires such variety (seemingly infinite) to rest on.
Chestnut trees are generally bare, showing only a thin crescent of burs, for they are very small this year. I climb one on Pine Hill, looking over Flint’s Pond, which, indeed, I see from the ground. These young chestnuts growing in clumps from a stump are hard to climb, having few limbs below, far apart, and they dead and rotten.
The brightest tint of the black oaks that I remember was some yellow gleams from half green and brownish leaves; i. e., the tops of the large trees have this yellowish and green look. It is a mellow yellow enough, without any red. The brightest of the red oaks were a pretty delicate scarlet, inclining to a brownish yellow, the effect enhanced by the great size of the leaf.
When, on the 22d, I was looking from the Cliffs on the shrub oak plain, etc., calling some of the brightest tints flame-like, I saw the flames of a burning — for we see their smokes of late—two or three miles distant in Lincoln rise above the red shrubbery, and saw how in intensity and brilliancy the real flame distanced all colors, even by day.
Now, especially, we notice not only the silvery leaves of the Salix alba but the silvery sheen of pine-needles; i. e., when its old leaves have fallen and trees generally are mostly bare, in the cool Novemberish air and light we observe and enjoy the trembling shimmer and gleam of the pine-needles.
I do not know why we perceive this more at this season, unless because the air is so clear and all surfaces reflect more light; and, besides, all the needles now left are fresh ones, or the growth of this year. Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light.
In November consider the sharp, dry rustle of withered leaves; the cool, silvery, and shimmering gleams of light, as above; the fresh bright buds formed and exposed along the twigs; walnuts.
The leaves of the Populus grandidentata, though half fallen and turned a pure and handsome yellow, are still wagging as fast as ever. These do not lose their color and wither on the tree like oaks and beeches and some of their allies, and hickories, too, and button wood, neither do maples, nor birches quite, nor willows (except the Salix tristis and perhaps some of the next allied), — but they are fresh and unwilted, full of sap and fair as ever when they are first strewn on the ground. I do not think of any tree whose leaves are so fresh and fair when they fall.
The beech has just fairly turned brown of different shades, but not yet crisped or quite withered. Only the young in the shade of the woods are yet green and yellow. Half the leaves of the last are a light yellow with a green midrib, and are quite light and bright seen through the woods. The lower parts, too, of the large tree are yellow yet. I should put this tree, then, either with the main body of the oaks or between them and the scarlet oak. I have not seen enough to judge of their beauty.
Returning in an old wood-path from top of Pine Hill to Goose Pond, I see many goldenrods turned purple — all the leaves. Some of them are Solidago coesia and some (I think) S. puberula. Many goldenrods, as S. odorata, turn yellow or paler. The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides. The Viburnum dentatum leaves, which are rather thin now, are drooping like the Cornus sericea (although fresh), and are mixed purplish and light green.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 25, 1858
I look at the willows by the causeway, -- all almost quite bare. See October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.")
The long yellow buds (often red-pointed) which sleep along the twigs of the S. discolor are very conspicuous and quite interesting. See October 18, 1859 (The long, curved, yellowish buds of the Salix discolor begin to show, the leaves falling; even the down has peeped out from under some."); October 24, 1860 ("I see those narrow pointed yellow buds now laid bare so thickly along the slender twigs of the Salix discolor, which is almost bare of leaves.")
Near the end of the causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting. See October 19, 1856 ("The Asclepias Cornuti pods are now apparently in the midst of discounting."); September 21, 1856 ("Asclepias Cornuti discounting.")
In the cut the F. hyemalis, which has been here for a month, flits away with its sharp twitter amid the falling leaves. This is a fall sound. See October 22, 1859 ("F. hyemalis quite common for a week past."); October 26, 1857 ("each uttering a faint chip from time to time, as if to keep together, bewildering you so that you know not if the greater part are gone by or still to come. One rests but a moment on the tree before you and is gone again. You wonder if they know whither they are bound, and how their leader is appointed.") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)
Another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light. See October 16, 1859 ("This clear, cold, Novemberish light is inspiriting. Some twigs which are bare and weeds begin to glitter with hoary light. The very edge or outline of a tawny or russet hill has this hoary fight on it. Your thoughts sparkle like the water surface and the downy twigs."); November 28, 1856 ("At 3.30 p. m., the sunlight reflected from the many ascending twigs of bare young chestnuts and birches, very dense and ascendant with a marked parallelism, they remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season, being almost exactly similar to the eye. It is a true November phenomenon.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days
The scarlet oak shrubs are as distinct amid the other species . . . distributed over the hills, by some law not quite understood. See October 31, 1858 ("There is brought out a more brilliant redness in the scarlet oaks, scattered so equally over the forest, than you would have believed was in them. Every tree of this species which is visible in these directions, even to the horizon, now stands out distinctly red."); November 1, 1858 ("If you wish to count the scarlet oaks. do it now. Stand on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high and the sky is clear, and every one within range of your vision will be revealed." )See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Scarlet Oak
Cool silvery light
like the gleam from gossamer
reflects from bare twigs
The trembling shimmer
and gleam of the pine-needles –
these November lights.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Lights
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
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