Viburnum nudum berries.

September 3  P. M. — To Hubbard's Swamp for Viburnum nudum berries. 

September 3

The river smooth, though full, with the autumn sheen on it, as on the leaves. 

I see painted tortoises with their entire backs covered with perfectly fresh clean black scales, such as no rubbing nor varnishing can produce, contrasting advantageously with brown and muddy ones. One little one floats past on a drifting pad which he partly sinks. 

I find one sassafras berry, dark-blue in its crimson cup, club-shaped. It is chiefly stone, and its taste is like that of tar (!), methinks, far from palatable. 

So many plants, the indigenous and the bewildering variety of exotics, you see in conservatories and nurserymen's catalogues, or read of in English books, and the Royal Society did not make one of them, and knows no more about them than you! All truly indigenous and wild on this earth. I know of no mark that betrays an introduced plant, as none but the gardener can tell what flower has strayed from its parterre; but where the seed will germinate and the plant spring and grow, there it is at home. 

Weeds are uncultivated herbaceous plants which do not bear handsome flowers. 

Polygala sanguinea is now as abundant, at least, as at any time, and perhaps more conspicuous in the meadows where I look for fringed gentian. 

Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. The berries, which are of various sizes and forms, — elliptical, oblong, or globular, — are in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. 

If gathered when rose-colored, they soon turn dark purple and are soft and edible, though before bitter. They add a new and variegated wildness to the swampy sprout-lands. Remarkable for passing through so many stages of color before they arrive at maturity. 

A singular and pleasing contrast, also, do the different kinds of viburnum and cornel berries present when compared with each other. The white berries of the panicled cornel, soon and apparently prematurely dropping from its pretty fingers, are very bitter. So also are those of the C. sericea. 

One carrion-flower berry is turning blue in its dense spherical cluster. 

Castile-soap galls are crowding the more legitimate acorn on the shrub oak.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 3, 1856

Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime . . . in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. See August  28, 1856  ("Viburnum nudum berries are beginning; I already see a few shrivelled purple ones amid the light green.");  August 31, 1856 ("The Viburnum nudum berries are now in prime, a handsome rose-purple . . and the next morning thirty were turned dark purple."); September 27,  1856 ("Viburnum nudum berries are soon gone. I noticed none to speak of in Hubbard's Swamp, September 15th.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnums

The river smooth . . . with the autumn sheen on it. See September 2, 1856 ("Clear bright days of late, with a peculiar sheen on the leaves.”)

Attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. See  September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man.. . . It behooves me to go a-berrying in this sense once a year at least. “)

Polygala sanguinea is now as abundant, at least, as at any time. See September 3, 1854 ("In the meadow southwest of Hubbard's Hill saw white Polygala sanguinea, not described.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Polygala

I find one sassafras berry, dark-blue in its crimson cup, club-shaped. . . methinks, far from palatable. See September 24, 1854 ("On the large sassafras trees on the hill I see many of the handsome red club-shaped pedicels left, with their empty cups.”)

Painted tortoises with . . . fresh clean black scales.  See August 31, 1856 ("A painted tortoise shedding its scales.”);  September 15, 1855 ("See many painted tortoise scales being shed, half erect on their backs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Castile-soap galls. September 4, 1854 (“In the wood-paths I find a great many of the Castile-soap galls, more or less fresh.”)

September 3.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  September 3

Various berries

sizes forms – elliptical

oblong, globular –

many stages of color.

Viburnum nudum.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum nudum berries

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/HDT-560903

Be not in haste

August 28 

First watermelon. 

P. M. — To tortoise eggs, Marlborough road. 

Potentilla Norvegica again. 

I go over linnaea sprout lands. 

The panicled cornel berries are whitening, but already mostly fallen. As usual the leaves of this shrub, though it is so wet, are rolled like corn, showing the paler under sides. At this season it would seem that rain, frost, and drought all produce similar effects. 

Now the black cherries in sprout-lands are in their  prime, and the black choke-berries just after huckleberries and blueberries. They are both very abundant this year. The branches droop with cherries. Those on some trees are very superior to others. 

The bushes are weighed down with choke-berries, which no creature appears to gather. This crop is as abundant as the huckleberries have been. They have a sweet and pleasant taste enough, but leave a mass of dry pulp in the mouth. But it is worth the while to see their profusion, if only to know what nature can do. 

Huckleberries are about given up, low blueberries more or less shrivelled, low blackberries done, high blackberries still to be had. Viburnum nudum berries are beginning; I already see a few shrivelled purple ones amid the light green. Poke berries also begun. 

A goldfinch twitters away from every thistle now, and soon returns to it when I am past. I see the ground strewn with the thistle-down they have scattered on every side. 

At Tarbell's andromeda swamp. A probable Bidens connata or small chrysanthemoides. 

I open the painted tortoise nest of June 10th, and find a young turtle partly out of his shell. He is roundish and the sternum clear uniform pink. The marks on the sides are pink. The upper shell is fifteen sixteenths of an inch plus by thirteen sixteenths. He is already wonderfully strong and precocious. Though those eyes never saw the light before, he watches me very warily, even at a distance. With what vigor he crawls out of the hole I have made, over opposing weeds! He struggles in my fingers with great strength; has none of the tenderness of infancy. His whole snout is convex, and curved like a beak. Having attained the surface, he pauses and warily watches me. In the meanwhile another has put his head out of his shell, but I bury the latter up and leave them.

Meanwhile a striped squirrel sits on the wall across the road under a pine, eying me, with his cheek-pouches stuffed with nuts and puffed out ludicrously, as if he had the mumps, while the wall is strewn with the dry brown husks of hazelnuts he has stripped. A bird, perhaps a thrasher, in the pine close above him is hopping restlessly and scolding at him. 

June, July, and August, the tortoise eggs are hatching a few inches beneath the surface in sandy fields. You tell of active labors, of works of art, and wars the past summer; meanwhile the tortoise eggs underlie this turmoil. What events have transpired on the lit and airy surface three inches above them! Sumner knocked down; Kansas living an age of suspense. Think what is a summer to them! How many worthy men have died and had their funeral sermons preached since I saw the mother turtle bury her eggs here! They contained an undeveloped liquid then, they are now turtles. 

June, July, and August, — the livelong summer, — what are they with their heats and fevers but sufficient to hatch a tortoise in. Be not in haste; mind your private affairs. Consider the turtle. A whole summer — June, July, and August — is not too good nor too much to hatch a turtle in. 

Perchance you have worried yourself, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life, and all things seemed rushing to destruction; but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with a turtle's pace. 

The young turtle spends its infancy within its shell. It gets experience and learns the ways of the world through that wall. While it rests warily on the edge of its hole, rash schemes are undertaken by men and fail. Has not the tortoise also learned the true value of time? You go to India and back, and the turtle eggs in your field are still unhatched. French empires rise or fall, but the turtle is developed only so fast. 

What's a summer? Time for a turtle's eggs to hatch. So is the turtle developed, fitted to endure, for he outlives twenty French dynasties. One turtle knows several Napoleons. 

They have seen no berries, had no cares, yet has not the great world existed for them as much as for you?

Euphorbia hypericifolia, how long? It has pretty little white and also rose-colored petals, or, as they are now called, involucre. Stands six inches high, regularly curving, with large leaves prettily arranged at an angle with both a horizontal and perpendicular line. 

See the great oval masses of scarlet berries of the arum now in the meadows. Trillium fruit, long time.

August 28, 2014

The river being thus high, for ten days or more I have seen little parcels of shells left by the muskrats. So they eat them thus early. 

Peppermint, how long? May be earlier than I have thought, for the mowers clip it. 

The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river, amid their red-brown leaves, — the kinnikinnic of the Indians. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 28, 1856

The panicled cornel berries are whitening. See August 15, 1854 ("Panicled cornel berries on College Road. “); August 22, 1852 ("The panicled cornel berries now white. “)

I open the painted tortoise nest of June 10th. See June 10, 1856 ("A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road.”). See also August 26, 1854 ("Open one of my snapping turtle's eggs.”)

Be not in haste. September 17, 1839 ("Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace."); July 19, 1851 ("This rapid revolution of nature, even of nature in me, why should it hurry me?"); August 19, 1851 ("The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other."); September 24, 1859 ("Great works of art have endless leisure for a background, as the universe has space. Time stands still while they are created. The artist cannot be in [a] hurry. The earth moves round the sun with inconceivable rapidity, and yet the surface of the lake is not ruffled by it.")

Has not the great world existed for them as much as for you? See September 9, 1854 ("Thus the earth is the mother of all creatures.”); August 26, 1854 ("I am convinced that there must be an irresistible necessity for mud turtles.”)

The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea [red-osier dogwood]] begin to show themselves along the river. .See  August 28, 1852 ("Now the red osier berries are very handsome along the river, overhanging the water, for the most part pale blue mixed with whitish, -- part of the pendant jewelry of the season.”);   See also August 31, 1856 (“The Cornus sericea, with its berries just turning, is generally a dull purple now."); September 1, 1854 (The Cornus sericea berries are now in prime, of different shades of blue, lighter or darker, and bluish white. . . .a great ornament to our causeways and riverside.”)

What is a summer? 

Time for turtle eggs to hatch,

fitted to endure.

Nature steadily 

and serenely advances 

with a turtle's pace.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Be not in haste

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 © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560828

 

Single red maples bright against the cold green pines, now seen a mile off.

September 26.

Took my last bath the 24th. Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold.

It is a warm and very pleasant afternoon, and I walk along the riverside in Merrick’s pasture. I hear a faint jingle from some sparrows on the willows ––tree or else song sparrows. 

Many swamp white oak acorns have turned brown on the trees. 

Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off. It is too fair to be believed, especially seen against the light. Some are a reddish or else greenish yellow, others with red or yellow cheeks. I suspect that the yellow maples had not scarlet blossoms.

The bunches of panicled cornel are purple, though you see much of the gray under sides of the leaves. 

Viburnum dentatum berries still hold on.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 26, 1854

Probably shall not bathe again this year. See September 26, 1852 ("The river is getting to be too cold for bathing") See also September 25, 1851 ("I find the water suddenly cold, and that the bathing days are over."); September 25, 1852 ("The river is getting to be too cold for bathing."); September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over”) and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

I hear a faint jingle from some sparrows on the willows.  See September 24, 1854 ("Do I see an F. hyemalis in the Deep Cut? It is a month earlier than last year."); September 29, 1854 ("I hear a very pleasant and now unusual strain on the sunny side of an oak wood from many — I think F. hyemalis, though I do not get a clear view of them. Even their slight jingling strain is remarkable at this still season") Compare March 23, 1854 ("The birds in yard active now, — hyemalis, tree sparrow, and song sparrow. The hyemalis jingle easily distinguished.")

Many swamp white oak acorns have turned brown on the trees. See September 30, 1859 ("Some acorns (swamp white oak) are browned on the trees ") See also September 30, 1854 ("The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again.")

Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines. See September 19, 1852 ("And in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush.");  September 20, 1857   ("A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there."); September 25, 1857 ("The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence"); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."); September 27, 1857 ("It flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum."). See also v,The Red Maple

Panicled cornel are purple, though you see much of the gray under sides of the leaves. See September 24, 1854 ("The panicled cornel green with a tinge of reddish purple.")

Viburnum dentatum berries still hold on. See August 13, 1858 ("The dullish-blue or lead-colored Viburnum dentatum berries are now seen, not long, overhanging the side of the river."); August 27, 1856 ("Then there are the Viburnum dentatum berries, in flattish cymes, dull lead colored berries, depressed globular, three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with a mucronation, hard, seedy, dryish, and unpalatable.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnums

September 26. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau September 26

Single red maples

bright against the cold green pines

now seen a mile off.

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Single red maples now seen a mile off.

 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-540926

Getting lost

August 15.

Walk all day with Channing, northwest into Acton and Carlisle. 

A dog-day, comfortably cloudy and cool as well as still. 

The river meadows, where no mowing, have a yellowish and autumnal look.  

I see large flocks of bobolinks on the Union Turnpike. 

Ford the Assabet at the bathing-place. 

Panicled cornel berries on College Road. 

Many of the trees in Barrett's orchard on Annursnack touch the ground all around, weighed down with fruit.

Cross from top of Annursnack to top of Strawberry Hill.  The locomotive whistle, far southwest, sounds like a bell. 

From Strawberry Hill we steer northeast toward the east point of a wood in the direction of Hutchinson's, perhaps two miles off.

Before starting on this walk I had studied the map to discover a new walk, and decided to go through a large wooded tract west and northwest of the Paul Dudley house, where there was no road, there at last to strike east across the head of Spencer Brook Meadow, perhaps to the old Carlisle road.

A mile and a half northeast of Strawberry Hill, keeping on through a somewhat swampy upland, we fall  into a path, which Channing preferring, though it leads us through woods widely out of our course westward. 

I soon correct it, and, descending through swampy land, at length see through the trees and bushes into a small meadow completely surrounded by woods, in which is a man haying only eight or ten rods off. 

Soon after, we follow an indistinct path through a dense birch wood, leading quite out of our course, westward.

At length, when I endeavor to correct my course by compass, it points so that I lose my faith in it, and we continue to go out of our way, till we come out on a side-hill immediately overlooking a stream and mill and several houses and a small mill-pond. 

We are completely lost, and see not one familiar object. 

At length see steeples which we think Westford, but the monument proves it Acton. Take their bearings, calculate a new course, and pursue it at first east-northeast, then east, and finally southeast, along rocky hillsides covered with weeds, where the fall seems further advanced than in Concord, with more autumnal colors, through dense oak woods and scrub oak, across a road or two, over some pastures, through a swamp or two, where the cinnamon fern is as high as our heads.   

After travelling about five miles, for the most part in woods, without knowing where we are, we come out on a hill from which we see, far to the south, the open valley at head of Spencer Brook.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 15, 1854

A large flocks of bobolinks... See August 15, 1852 ("I see a dense, compact flock of bobolinks going off in the air over a field. They cover the rails and alders, and go rustling off with a brassy, tinkling note as I approach, revealing their yellow breasts and bellies. This is an autumnal sight, that small flock of grown birds in the afternoon sky.")

Cross from top of Annursnack to top of Strawberry Hill.  See September 6, 1851  ("From Strawberry Hill the first, but a very slight, glimpse of Nagog Pond by standing up on the wall. That is enough to relate of a hill, methinks, that its elevation gives you the first sight of some distant lake.")

We are completely lost, . See March 29, 1853 ("It is a surprising and memorable and, I may add, valuable experience to be lost in the woods, especially at night")

August 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Just after sunrise and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 15

Far in the southwest

the locomotive whistle

sounds like a bell.

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

A fine ripple and sparkle on the pond, seen through the mist...

Sunset, June 16, 2014

June 16.  As the sun went down last night, round and red in a damp misty atmosphere, so now it rises in the same manner, though there is no dense fog.

.                   

Sunrise June 16, 2014

Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us. Thus it is almost invariably, methinks, with thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us.  

The warmer, or at least drier, weather has now prevailed about a fortnight. Once or twice the sun has gone down red, shorn of his beams. There have been showers all around us, but nothing to mention here yet. 

Panicled cornel well out on Heywood Peak. 

There is a cool east wind, — and has been afternoons for several days, — which has produced a very thick haze or a fog.  

There is a fine ripple and sparkle on the pond, seen through the mist.

June 16, 2014

The Rosa nitida grows along the edge of the ditches, the half-open flowers showing the deepest rosy tints, so glowing that they make an evening or twilight of the surrounding afternoon, seeming to stand in the shade or twilight. Already the bright petals of yesterday's flowers are thickly strewn along on the black mud at the bottom of the ditch. 

• The R. nitida, the earlier (?), with its narrow shiny leaves and prickly stem and its moderate-sized rose pink petals. 
• The R. lucida, with its broader and duller leaves, but larger and perhaps deeper-colored and more purple petals, perhaps yet higher scented, and its great yellow centre of stamens. 
• The smaller, lighter, but perhaps more delicately tinted R. rubiginosa. 

One and all drop their petals the second day. I bring home the buds of the three ready to expand at night, and the next day they perfume my chamber.

Add to these the white lily (just begun), also the swamp-pink, and probably morning-glory, and the great orchis, and mountain laurel (now in prime), and perhaps we must say that the fairest flowers are now to be found. 

It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. It may be plucked when the spike is only half opened, and will open completely and keep perfectly fresh in a pitcher more than a week. 

Do I not live in a garden, — in paradise? I can go out each morning before breakfast — I do — and gather these flowers with which to perfume my chamber where I read and write, all day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 16, 1854

Thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us. See June 15, 1860 ("A thunder-shower in the north goes down the Merrimack."); June 16, 1860 (" Thunder-showers show themselves about 2 P.M. in the west, but split at sight of Concord and go past on each side")

There is a cool east wind, — and has been afternoons for several days, — which has produced a very thick haze or a fog. See June 23, 1854 ("There has been a foggy haze, dog-day-like, for perhaps ten days"); See also April 30, 1856 ("Early in the afternoon, or between one and four, the wind changes . . . and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Sea-turn

I bring home the buds of the three ready to expand at night, and the next day they perfume my chamber. See June 23, 1852 ("I take the wild rose buds to my chamber and put them in a pitcher of water, and they will open there the next day, and a single flower will perfume a room ;and then, after a day, the petals drop off, and new buds open."); June 15, 1853 ("I bring home the[wild rose] buds ready to expand, put them in a pitcher of water, and the next morning they open and fill my chamber with fragrance.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

 It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. See June 9, 1854 ("Find the great fringed orchis out apparently two or three days.Two are almost fully out, two or three only budded.A large spike of peculiarly delicate pale-purple flowers growing in the luxuriant and shady swamp . . .I think that no other but myself in Concord annually finds it. . . . It lifts its delicate spike amid the hellebore and ferns in the deep shade of the swamp. "); June 19, 1852 (" The orchis keeps well. One put in my hat this morning, and carried all day, will last fresh a day or two at home"); June 21, 1852 (" The purple orchis is a good flower to bring home. It will keep fresh many days, and its buds open at last in a pitcher of water") See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The purple fringed orchids

My chamber where I read and write, all day. See H Daniel Peck, Thoreau's Morning Work (noting that Thoreau "'set aside regular intervals, usually in the morning, for [the Journal's] composition, and typically wrote several days' entries at a sitting, working from notes that he accumulated during his [after-noon] walks' of the previous several days") See also  July 23, 1851 (" If I should reverse the usual, — go forth and saunter in the fields all the forenoon, then sit down in my chamber in the afternoon, which it is so unusual for me to do,-it would be like a new season to me, and the novelty of it (would) inspire me. . . .Is the literary man to live always or chiefly sitting in a chamber through which nature enters by a window only? What is the use of the summer? . . . I expand more surely in my chamber, as far as expression goes . . . but here outdoors is the place to store up influences.")

Note. Today HDT extends his comments on the extradition of Anthony Burns:

But what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them. When we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both rulers and ruled are without principle? The remembrance of the baseness of politicians spoils my walks. My thoughts are murder to the State; I endeavor in vain to observe nature; my thoughts involuntarily go plotting against the State. I trust that all just men will conspire.

We have used up all our inherited freedom . . . It is not an era of repose. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them . . . Why will men be such fools as to trust to lawyers for a moral reform? I do not believe that there is a judge in this country prepared to decide by the principle that a law is immoral and therefore of no force.

See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854 and "Slavery in Massachusetts,"

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

There have been showers

all around us, but nothing

to mention here yet.

Thus it is methinks

with thunder-clouds in the east –

they do not reach us.

It is eight days since 

I plucked the great orchis still 

fresh in my pitcher.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A fine ripple and sparkle on the Pond

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

 

tinyurl.com/hdt-540616 

The color of fruits and berries

August 22.
The elder bushes are weighed down with fruit partially turned, and are still in bloom at the extremities of their twigs. I am struck by the handsome and abundant clusters of yet green shrub oak acorns. Some are whitish. How much food for some creatures! Is not the high blackberry our finest berry?  I gather very sweet ones which weigh down the vines in sprout-lands.  The arum berries are mostly devoured, apparently by birds. The two-leaved Solomon's-seal berries begin to be red. The panicled cornel berries now white.  

Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 22, 1852

Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them. See June 15, 1852 ("Flowers were made to be seen, not overlooked. Their bright colors imply eyes, spectators")

Abundant clusters 

of yet green shrub oak acorns –

food for some creatures