September 11.
P.M. — To Conantum-end.
The prinos berries are now seen, red (or scarlet), clustered along the stems, amid the as yet green leaves. A cool red.
By the pool in Hubbard's Grove, I see tall tupelos, all dotted with the now ripe (apparently in prime) small oval purple berries, two or three together on the end of slender peduncles, amid the reddening leaves. This fruit is very acid and has a large stone, but I see several robins on the trees, which appear to have been attracted by it. Neither tree nor fruit is generally known, and many liken the former when small to a pear. The trees are quite full of fruit.
The wax-like fruit of Cornus paniculata still holds on abundantly.
This being a cloudy and somewhat rainy day, the autumnal dandelion is open in the afternoon.
The Rhus Toxicodendron berries are now ripe and greenish-yellow, and some already shrivelled, over bare rocks.
September is the month when various small, and commonly inedible, berries in cymes and clusters hang over the roadsides and along the walls and fences, or spot the forest floor.
The clusters of the Viburnum Lentago berries, now in their prime, are exceedingly and peculiarly handsome, and edible withal. These are drooping, like the Cornus sericea cymes. Each berry in the cyme is now a fine, clear red on the exposed side and a distinct and clear green on the opposite side. Many are already purple, and they turn in your hat, but they are handsomest when thus red and green.
The large clusters of the Smilacina racemosa berries, four or five inches long, of whitish berries a little smaller than a pea, finely marked and dotted with vermilion or bright red, are very conspicuous. I do not chance to see any ripe.
No fruit is handsomer than the acorn. I see but few fallen yet, and they are all wormy. Very pretty, especially, are the white oak acorns, three raying from one centre.
I see dill and saffron still, commonly out at R. W. E.'s.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 11, 1859
September is the month when various small, and commonly inedible, berries in cymes and clusters hang over the roadsides and along the walls and fences, or spot the forest floor. See
September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man.. . .Berries which are as beautiful as flowers, but far less known, the fruit of the flower.") See also
August 27, 1856 ("There are many wild-looking berries about now.");
September 1, 1854 ("The
Cornus sericea berries are now in prime, of different shades of blue, lighter or darker, and bluish white.");
September 1, 1856 ("Cohush berries appear now to be in their prime, and arum berries, and red choke-berries, which last further up in this swamp, with their peculiar glossy red and squarish form, are really very handsome. A few medeola berries ripe.");
September 2, 1853 ("The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion on a rich ground . . . The medeola berries are now dull glossy and almost blue-black; about three, on slender threads one inch long, arising in the midst of the cup formed by the purple bases of the whorl of three upper leaves."); );
September 3, 1856 (A singular and pleasing contrast, also, do the different kinds of viburnum and cornel berries present when compared with each other. ");
September 4, 1859 (See a very large mass of spikenard berries fairly ripening, eighteen inches long").
The clusters of the Viburnum Lentago berries, now in their prime, are exceedingly and peculiarly handsome, and edible withal. See
August 21, 1853 ("The
Viburnum Lentago berries are but just beginning to redden on one cheek.”);
August 23, 1853 (".How handsome now the cymes of
Viburnum Lentago berries, flattish with red cheeks!”);
August 25, 1852 ("The fruit of the
Viburnum Lentago is now very handsome, with its sessile cymes of large elliptical berries, green on one side and red with a purple bloom on the other or exposed side, not yet purple, blushing on one cheek.”);
August 27, 1854 (Some
Viburnum Lentago berries, turned blue before fairly reddening."); .
August 27, 1856 ("The
Viburnum Lentago begin to show their handsome red cheeks, rather elliptic-shaped and mucronated, one cheek clear red with a purplish bloom, the other pale green, now. Among the handsomest of berries, one half inch long by three eighths by two eighths, being somewhat flattish");
August 30, 1853 ("
Viburnum Lentago berries are now common and handsome");
September 1, 1854 ("The
Viburnum Lentago are just fairly begun to have purple cheeks.");
September 13, 1856 ("The
Viburnum Lentago, which I left not half turned red when I went up-country a week ago, are now quite black-purple and shrivelled like raisins on my table, and sweet to taste, though chiefly seed."); Also see
A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau
, The Viburnum lentago (Nannyberry)
when various berries hang
in cymes and clusters.
