A Book of the Seasons: Blue-stemmed goldenrod (solidago caesia)

 I would make a chart of our life, 

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

The blue-stemmed and white

goldenrod survive – push up

and blossom anew.

October 26, 1852

May 30.  Blue-stemmed goldenrod is already a foot high. May 30, 1857

August 7. I see that common gall on goldenrods now on an   S. cæsia. August 7, 1856 

August 24. Blue-stemmed goldenrod, apparently a few days in some places.  The goldenrods which I have observed in bloom this year are (I do not remember the order exactly): (1) stricta, (2) lanceolata, (3) arguta (?), (4) петоralis, (5) bicolor, (6) odora, (7) altissima, (8) ulmifolia (?), (9) cæsia . . . The cæsia ( 9th ) just begun. August 24, 1853

August 27. Blue-stemmed goldenrod, a day or two.  August 27, 1854

September 3, 2023

September 18. Solidago caesia in prime at Bittern Cliff Wood. September 18, 1856

September 20, 2025

September 23. A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red. September 23, 1852

September 23. I see everywhere in the shady yew wood those pretty round-eyed fungus-spots on the upper leaves of the blue-stemmed goldenrod, contrasting with the few bright-yellow flowers above them, -- yellowish-white rings (with a slate-colored centre), surrounded by green and then dark. September 23, 1860 

September 30.  All the honey-bees we saw were on the blue-stemmed golden-rod (Solidago cæsia), which is late, lasts long, which emitted a sweet agreeable fragrance, not on the asters. September 30, 1852

October 2.  The Aster undulatus and Solidago cæsia and often puberula are particularly prominent now, looking late and bright, attracting bees, etc. I see the S. cæsia so covered with the little fuzzy gnats as to be whitened by them. October 2, 1859

October 19. The most prominent of the few lingering solidagos which I have noticed since the 8th is the S. caesia, though that is very scarce indeed now, hardly survives at all. October 19, 1856

October 20. Canada snapdragon, tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed. October 20, 1852

October 22. The blue-stemmed goldenrod.  October 22, 1852

October 23.  The blue-stemmed, and also the white, solidago on Walden bank. October 23, 1853

October 25. 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. October 25, 1858
 

October 26. The blue-stemmed and white goldenrod apparently survive till winter, – push up and blossom anew.  October 26, 1852

November 2.  The leaves which are not withered, whose tints are still fresh and bright, are now remarked in sheltered places. Plucked quite a handsome nosegay from the side of Heywood's Peak, - white and blue-stemmed goldenrods, asters (undulatus and ?).  November 2, 1852

November 10. In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple. November 10, 1858

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., etc. November 23, 1852 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blue-stemmed Goldenrod (solidago caesia)

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

Over the highest hill behind Bangor.

September 23

Friday. Walked down the riverside this forenoon to the hill where they were using a steamshovel at the new railroad cut, and thence to a hill three quarters of a mile further. 

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.

I returned across the fields behind the town, and over the highest hill behind Bangor, and up the Kenduskieg, from which I saw the Ebeeme Mountains in the northwest and hills we had come by. 

The arbor-vitæ is the prevailing shrub.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1853

Friday. Walked down the riverside. See September 21, 1853 ("Reached Bangor at dark."); September 22, 1853 ("Behind one house, an Indian had nearly finished one canoe and was just beginning another, outdoors")

Aster undulatus. See September 20, 1852 ("Aster undulatus, or variable aster, with a large head of middle-sized blue flowers."); October 6, 1858 ("the Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path. "); October 19, 1856 ("The A. undulatus is, perhaps, the only [aster] of which you can find a respectable specimen. I see one so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it."); October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides.");November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet.")

Solidago nemoralis. See note to September 12, 1859 ("One dense mass of the bright golden recurved wands of the Solidago nemoralis, waving in the wind and turning upward to the light hundreds, if not a thousand, flowerets each.")

Fragrant everlasting, See August 11, 1858 (“I smell the fragrant everlasting concealed in the higher grass and weeds there, some distance off.”); September 19, 1852 ("The fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound")

I saw the Ebeeme Mountains in the northwest and hills we had come by. See Book for the Children of Maine, 19 (1831)   ("The Ebeeme mountains nearly south of Ktaadn, are about four thousand feet high.")

I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden.

September 23

Notwithstanding the fog, the fences this morning are covered with so thick a frost that you can write your name anywhere with your nail.

The partridge and the rabbit, — they still are sure to thrive like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, many bushes spring up which afford them concealment, and they become more numerous than ever.

The sumach are among the reddest leaves at present.

The telegraph harp sounds strongly to-day, in the midst of the rain. I put my ear to the trees and I hear it working terribly within, and anon it swells into a clear tone, which seems to concentrate in the core of the tree, for all the sound seems to proceed from the wood. It is if you had entered some world - famous cathedral, resounding to some vast organ.

The fibres of all things have their tension, and are strained like the strings of a lyre. I feel the very ground tremble under my feet as I stand near the post. This wire vibrates with great power, as if it would strain and rend the wood.

What an awful and fateful music it must be to the worms in the wood! No better vermifuge were needed. No danger that worms will attack this wood; such vibrating music would thrill them to death.

I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1851

The partridge and the rabbit, — they still are sure to thrive like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. See  February 14, 1856 ("In all the little valleys in the woods and sprout-lands, and on the southeast sides of hills, the oak leaves which have blown over the crust are gathered in dry and warm-looking beds. . . No doubt they are of service to conceal and warm the rabbit and partridge and other beasts and birds."); March 17, 1860 ("The rabbit and partridge can eat wood; therefore they abound and can stay here all the year."); November 18, 1851 (".Here hawks also circle by day, and chickadees are heard, and rabbits and partridges abound. . . .You must be conversant with things for a long time to know much about them,. . . as the partridge and the rabbit are acquainted with the thickets and at length have acquired the color of the places they frequent."); Walden (" All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath”); December 1, 1856 ("Well named shrub oak. Low, robust, hardy, indigenous. Well known to the striped squirrel and the partridge and rabbit"); December 11, 1854 ("A gray rabbit scuds away over the crust in the swamp on the edge of the Great Meadows beyond Peter’s. A partridge goes off, and, coming up, I see where she struck the snow first with her wing,"); December 11, 1858 ("Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge, etc"); December 31, 1855 ("I see many partridge-tracks in the light snow, where they have sunk deep amid the shrub oaks; also gray rabbit and deer mice tracks");

.

I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden. See August 25, 1859 ("I see, after the rain, when the leaves are rustling and glistening in the cooler breeze and clear air, quite a flock of (apparently) Fringilla socialis in the garden"); September 1, 1854 (" A still, cloudy, misty day, through which has fallen a very little rain this forenoon already. Now I notice a few faint-chipping sparrows, busily picking the seeds of weeds in the garden."); September 17, 1858 ("Methinks, too, that there are more sparrows in flocks now about in garden, etc");September 25, 1859 (" The very crab-grass in our garden is for the most part a light straw-color and withered. . . and hundreds of sparrows (chip-birds ?) find their food amid it. "); October 2, 1858 ("The garden is alive with migrating sparrows these mornings")

A farmer in his field.

September 23

P. M. — Round by Clematis Brook.

The forget-me-not still.

I observe the rounded tops of the dogwood bushes, scarlet in the distance, on the edge of the meadow (Hubbard's), more full and bright than any flower.

The maples are mostly darker, the very few boughs that are turned, and the tupelo, which is reddening.

The ash is just beginning to turn.

The scarlet dogwood is the striking bush to-day.

I find huckleberries on Conantum still sound and blackening the bushes.

How much longer a mile appears between two blue mountain peaks thirty or more miles off in the horizon than one would expect!

Some acorns and hickory nuts on the ground, but they have not begun to shell.

Is it the nut of the Carya amara, with raised seams, but not bitter, that I perceive?

I suppose that is the Carya tomentosa, or mockernut hickory, with large rounded nuts on Lee's land.

The bitternuts (?), rubbed together, smell like varnish.

The sarothra in bloom.

The wind from the north has turned the white lily pads wrong side up, so that they look red, and their stems are slanted up-stream.

Almost all the yellow ones have disappeared.

September 23, 2018

A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red.

The woodbine high on trees in the shade a delicate pink.

I gathered some haws very good to eat to-day. I think they must be the senelles of the Canadians.

Hamamelis Virginiana out, before its leaves fall.

A woodchuck out.

The waxwork not opened.

The "feathery tails" of the clematis fruit conspicuous and interesting now.

Yellow lily out (again?) in the pond-holes.

Passing a corn-field the other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm. Any of his acquaintances would. He was only a trifle more weather-[beaten] than when I saw him last. His back being toward me, I missed nothing, and I thought to myself if I were a crow I should not fear the balance of him, at any rate.

In northern latitudes, where other edible fruits are scarce, they make an account of haws and bunch-berries.

The barberry bushes in Clematis Hollow are very beautiful now, with their wreaths of red or scarlet fruit drooping over a rock.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1852

The scarlet dogwood is the striking bush to-day. See note to September 25, 1852 ("The scarlet of the dogwood is the most conspicuous and interesting of the autumnal colors at present.")

A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red. See September 23, 1860 ("I see everywhere in the shady yew wood those pretty round-eyed fungus-spots on the upper leaves of the blue-stemmed goldenrod, contrasting with the few bright-yellow flowers above them, -- yellowish-white rings (with a slate-colored centre), surrounded by green and then dark."); See also November 10, 1858 ("In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blue-stemmed Goldenrod (solidago caesia)

How much longer a mile appears between two blue mountain peaks thirty or more miles off in the horizon. See March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'); May 17, 1858 ("I doubt if in the landscape there can be anything finer than a distant mountain-range. They are a constant elevating influence."); August 14, 1854 (“I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon.— to behold and commune with something grander than man. “); August 30, 1854 ("The clearness of the air makes it delicious to gaze in any direction. . . ., and I see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses . . and to the mountains in the horizon."); October 20, 1852 ("This is an advantage of mountains in the horizon: they show you fair weather from the midst of foul."); October 22, 1857 ("But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it? "); November 4, 1857 ("But those grand and glorious mountains, how impossible to remember daily that they are there, and to live accordingly! They are meant to be a perpetual reminder to us, pointing out the way."): November 22, 1860 ("Simply to see to a distant horizon through a clear air, - the fine outline of a distant hill or a blue mountaintop through some new vista, - this is wealth enough for one afternoon.")  

The wind from the north has turned the white lily pads wrong side up, so that they look red. See June 29, 1852 ("The wind exposes the red undersides of the white lily pads. This is one of the aspects of the river now."); August 24,1854 ("The bright crimson-red under sides of the great white lily pads, turned up by the wind in broad fields on the sides of the stream, are a great ornament to the stream. It is not till August, methinks, that they are turned up conspicuously.”)

Carya amara, bitternut -- Carya tomentosa, mockernut hickory,( North American hickories include:

·        Carya glabra – pignut hickory

·       Carya laciniosa - shagbark hickory

·     Carya ovata – shagbark hickory

·      Carya texana  black hickory

·      Carya tomentosa  – mockernut hickory

·      Carya cordiformis (amara)  – bitternut hickory)

 

 

Pretty copious rain in the night.

September 23 

Pretty copious rain in the night. 

11 A. M. — River risen about fourteen inches above lowest this year (or thirteen and three quarters above my mark by boat). 

What an army of non-producers society produces, —, ladies generally (old and young) and gentlemen of leisure, so called! Many think themselves well employed as charitable dispensers of wealth which somebody else earned, and these who produce nothing, being of the most luxurious habits, are precisely they who want the most, and complain loudest when they do not get what they want. 

They who are literally paupers maintained at the public expense are the most importunate and insatiable beggars. They cling like the glutton to a living man and suck his vitals up. 

To every locomotive man there are three or four deadheads clinging to him as if they conferred a great favor on society by living upon it. 

Meanwhile they fill the churches, and die and revive from time to time. They have nothing to do but sin, and repent of their sins. How can you expect such bloodsuckers to be happy?  

Not only foul and poisonous weeds grow in our tracks, but our vileness and luxuriance make simple and wholesome plants rank and weed-like. All that I ever got a premium for was a monstrous squash, so coarse that nobody could eat it. Some of these bad qualities will be found to lurk in the pears that are invented in and about the purlieus of great towns. 

"The evil that men do lives after them." 

The corn and potatoes produced by excessive manuring may be said to have, not only a coarse, but a poisonous, quality. They are made food [for] hogs and oxen too. 

What creatures is the grain raised on the corn-fields of Waterloo food for, unless it be for such as prey upon men? Who cuts the grass in the graveyard? 

I can detect the site of the shanties that have stood all along the railroads by the ranker vegetation. I do not go there for delicate wild-flowers. 

It is important, then, that we should air our lives from time to time by removals, and excursions into the fields and woods, — starve our vices. Do not sit so long over any cellar-hole as to tempt your neighbor to bid for the privilege of digging saltpetre there. 

So live that only the most beautiful wild-flowers will spring up where you have dwelt, — harebells, violets, and blue-eyed grass.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1859

Cape Ann and the comet

September 23

September 23, 2018

Another fair day and wind northwest, but rather warmer. 

We kept along the road to Rockport, some two miles or more, to a “thundering big ledge” by the road, as a man called it; then turned off toward the south shore, at a house with two very large and old pear trees before it. Part of the house was built by a Witham, one of the first settlers, and the place or neighborhood used to be called “the Farms.” Saw the F. hyemalis flitting along the walls, and it was cool enough for them on this cape. 

In a marsh by the shore, where was a very broad curving sandy beach, the shore of a cove, found the Ranunculus Cymbalaria, still in bloom, but mostly in fruit. Glaux maritima (?), nearly prostrate, with oblong leaves. Triglochin palustris in fruit. An eleocharis, apparently marine, with lenticular fruit and a wrinkled mitre-shaped beak. Spergularia rubra, etc., samphire, etc. 

The narrow road — where we followed it — wound about big boulders, past small, often bevel-roofed cottages where sometimes was a small flag flying for a vane. The number and variety of bevelled roofs on the Cape is surprising. Some are so nearly flat that they reminded me of the low brows of monkeys. 

We had already seen a sort of bare rocky ridge, a bare boulder-covered back of the Cape, running northeasterly from Gloucester toward Rockport and for some three miles quite bare, the eastern extremity of the Cape being wooded. That would be a good place to walk. 

In this marsh, saw what I thought the solitary tattler, quite tame. 

Having reached the shore, we sat under the lee of the rocks on the beach, opposite Salt Island. A man was carting seaweed along the shore between us and the water, the leather-apron kind, which trailed from his cart like the tails of oxen, and, when it came between us and the sun, was of a warm purple-brown glow. 

Half a mile further, beyond a rocky head, we came to another curving sandy beach, with a marsh between it and the Cape on the north. Saw there, in the soft sand, with beach-grass, apparently Juncus Balticus (?), very like but not so stout (!) as Juncus effusus. 

Met a gunner from Lynn on the beach, who had several pigeons which he had killed in the woods by the shore. Said that they had been blown off the mainland. Second, also a kingfisher. Third, what he called the “ox eye,” about size of peetweet but with a short bill and a blackish-brown crescent on breast, and wing above like peetweet’s, but no broad white mark below. Could it be Charadrius semipalmatus? Fourth, what he called a sandpiper, very white with a long bill. Was this Tringa arenaria? Fifth, what I took to be a solitary tattler, but possibly it was the pectoral sandpiper, which I have seen since. 

On the edge of the beach you see small dunes, with white or fawn-colored sandy sides, crowned with now  yellowish smilax and with bayberry bushes. Just before reaching Loblolly Cove, near Thatcher’s Island, sat on a beach composed entirely of small paving-stones lying very loose and deep. 

We boiled our tea for dinner on the mainland opposite Straitsmouth Island, just this side the middle of Rockport, under the lee of a boulder, using, as usual, dead bay berry bushes for fuel. This was, indeed, all we could get. They make a very quick fire, and I noticed that their smoke covered our dippers with a kind of japan which did not crock or come off nearly so much as ordinary soot. 

We could see the Salvages very plainly, apparently ex tending north and south, the Main Rock some fifteen or twenty rods long and east-northeast of Straitsmouth Island, apparently one and a half or two miles distant, with half-sunken ledges north and south of it, over which the sea was breaking in white foam. The ledges all together half a mile long. 

We could see from our dining-place Agamenticus, some forty miles distant in the north. Its two sides loomed so that about a third of the whole was lifted up, while a small elevation close to it on the east, which afterward was seen to be a part of it, was wholly lifted up. 

Rockport well deserves its name, — several little rocky harbors protected by a breakwater, the houses at Rockport Village backing directly on the beach. 

At Folly Cove, a wild rocky point running north, covered with beach—grass. See now a mountain on the east of Agamenticus. Isles of Shoals too low to be seen. Probably land at Boar’s Head, seen on the west of Agamenticus, and then the coast all the way from New Hampshire to Cape Ann plainly, Newburyport included and Plum Island. Hog Island looks like a high hill on the mainland. 

It is evident that a discoverer, having got as far west as Agamenticus, off the coast of Maine, would in clear weather discern the coast trending southerly beyond him as far round as Cape Ann, and if he did not wish to be embayed would stand across to Cape Ann, where the Salvages would be the outmost point. 

At Annisquam we found ourselves in the midst of boulders scattered over bare hills and fields, such as we had seen on the ridge northerly in the morning, i. e., they abound chiefly in the central and northwesterly part of the Cape. This was the most peculiar scenery of the Cape. 

We struck inland southerly, just before sundown, and boiled our tea with bayberry bushes by a swamp on the hills, in the midst of these great boulders, about half way to Gloucester, having carried our water a quarter of a mile, from a swamp, spilling a part in threading swamps and getting over rough places. 

Two oxen feeding in the swamp came up to reconnoitre our fire. We could see no house, but hills strewn with boulders, as if they had rained down, on every side, we sitting under a shelving one. When the moon rose, what had appeared like immense boulders half a mile off in the horizon now looked by contrast no larger than nutshells or buri-nut against the moon’s disk, and she was the biggest boulder of all. 

When we had put out our bayberry fire, we heard a squawk, and, looking up, saw five geese fly low in the twilight over our heads. We then set out to find our way to Gloucester over the hills, and saw the comet very bright in the northwest. 

Donati’s Comet 1858

After going astray a little in the moonlight, we fell into a road which at length conducted us to the town.

As we bought our lodging and breakfast, a pound of good ship-bread, which cost seven cents, and six herring, which cost three cents, with sugar and tea, supplied us amply the rest of the two days. The selection of suitable spots to get our dinner or supper led us into interesting scenery, and it was amusing to watch the boiling of our water for tea. There is a scarcity of fresh water on the Cape, so that you must carry your water a good way in a dipper.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1858

By Flint’s Pond road in the woods.

September 23

September 23, 2017
Solidago, aster & vanessa

Wednesday. P. M. – To chestnut oaks. 

Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint's Pond road in the woods. I observe in these places only the N. alba and Fraseri; but these are not well distinguished; they seem to be often alike in the color of the pappus. Some are very tall and slender, and the largest I saw was an N. Fraseri! One N. alba had a panicle three feet long! 

The Ripley beeches have been cut. I can’t find them. There is one large one, apparently on Baker's land, about two feet in diameter near the ground, but fruit hollow. 

I see yellow pine-sap, in the woods just east of where the beeches used to stand, just done, but the red variety is very common and quite fresh generally there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, 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. See September 13, 1857 (“Nabalus Fraseri, top of Cliffs, — a new plant, . . ."The nabalus family generally, apparently now in prime.”);September 15, 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.”);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.”)

I see yellow pine-sap . . . just done, but the red variety is very common . See  September 23, 1860 (“Red pine-sap by north side of Yew Path some ten rods east of yew, not long done. The root of the freshest has a decided checkerberry scent, and for a long time — a week after — in my chamber, the bruised plant has a very pleasant earthy sweetness. ”). See also June 29, 1853 (“American pine-sap, just pushing up, — false beech- drops. Gray says from June to August. It is cream-colored or yellowish under the pines in Hubbard's Wood Path. Some near the fence east of the Close. A plant related to the tobacco-pipe.”);  July 29,1853 (“American pine-sap, just pushing up, — false beech-drops. Gray says from June to August. It is cream-colored or yellowish under the pines in Hubbard's Wood Path. Some near the fence east of the Close. A plant related to the tobacco-pipe. Remarkable this doubleness in nature, — not only that nature should be composed of just these individuals, but that there should be so rarely or never an individual without its kindred, — its cousin. It is allied to something else. There is not only the tobacco-pipe, but pine-sap.”); August 14, 1856 (“Hypopitys, just beyond the last large (two-stemmed) chestnut at Saw Mill Brook, about done. Apparently a fungus like plant. It erects itself in seed.”); August 23, 1858 (“See an abundance of pine-sap on the right of Pine-sap Path.”); October 6, 1857 (“I see a great quantity of hypopitys, now all sere, along the path in the woods beyond. Call it Pine-Sap Path. It seems to have been a favorable season for it”); October 14, 1858 ("On the top of Ball’s Hill, nearly half-way its length, the red pine-sap, quite fresh, apparently not long in bloom, the flower recurved. As last year, I suspect that this variety is later than the yellowish one, of which I have seen none for a long time."); November 25, 1857 ("Methinks there has been more pine-sap than usual the past summer. I never saw a quarter part so much. It stands there withered in dense brown masses, six or eight inches high, partly covered with dead leaves.") and note to September 9, 1857 (“C. brings me a small red hypopitys. It has a faint sweet, earthy, perhaps checkerberry, scent”) and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Pine-sap and Indian-pipe

September 23, 2017

It has been a very warm week warmer in fact then the summer. We walk to the view and sit a long time longer than we planned  this extra time allows us to watch a flight of starlings cross the clearing and do a repeat performance then, unexpectedly a pileated bursts out of the woods and crosses the clearing this is the highlight of the walk. We go up the ravine past the Fisher “pond“ and around to the double chair New red pine needles are lightly strewn on the forest floor   we find a small bunch of white pine cones that has been nipped by a squirrel from the top of the tree. The cones are open, brown and very sticky.   We bushwhack  down the mountain.  By accident I come to the porcupine tree without knowing I was there or taking precautions with the dogs but all is well . At the lower view we snap a picture of the sun now setting  south of white face. I am hot and sweaty he when we get home. i think, “barred owls are the chickadees of the night”

This warm autumn day

unplanned a pileated

flys through the clearing.

zphx 20170923

A screech owl in moonlight/confusing fall warblers

September 23

Small sparrows, with yellow on one side above eye in front and white belly, erectile (?) crown divided by a light line. 

Those weeds, etc., on the bared meadow come up spontaneously. 

8 P. M. — I hear from my chamber a screech owl about Monroe’s house this bright moonlight night, — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt perchance, a rapid trill, then subdued or smothered a note or two. 

A little wren-like (or female goldfinch) bird on a willow at Hubbard’s Causeway, eating a miller: with bright-yellow rump when wings open, and white on tail. Could it have been a yellow-rump warbler?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1855

I hear from my chamber a screech owl — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt. See   June 2, 1860 ("I soon hear its mournful scream. . . not loud now but, though within twenty or thirty rods, sounding a mile off.”); June 25, 1860 ("At evening up the Assabet hear four or five screech owls on different sides of the river, uttering those peculiar low screwing or working, ventriloquial sounds.”); August 14, 1854 (“I hear the tremulous squealing scream of a screech owl in the Holden Woods.”); October 9, 1851 ("Heard two screech owls in the night")

A Book of the Seasons: September 23 (the crisis of first frosts, look for redness, huckleberries, blue-stemmed goldenrod, pine-sap)

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 

September 23.

The wind from the north

 turns up the white lily pads

so that they look red. 

September 23, 1852

The summer concludes

with the crisis of first frosts –

the end of berries.

September 23, 1854

September 23, 2013

Now look out for redness on the face of the earth, such as is seen on the cheek of the sweet Viburnum, or as a frosty morning walk imparts to a man’s face.  September 23, 1854

The sumach are among the reddest leaves at present. September 23, 1851

I observe the rounded tops of the dogwood bushes, scarlet in the distance, on the edge of the meadow (Hubbard's), more full and bright than any flower.  September 23, 1852

The maples are mostly darker, the very few boughs that are turned, and the tupelo, which is reddening.  September 23, 1852

The ash is just beginning to turn.  September 23, 1852

The scarlet dogwood is the striking bush to-day.  September 23, 1852

The wind from the north has turned the white lily pads wrong side up, so that they look red, and their stems are slanted up-stream. September 23, 1852
 
A blue-stemmed goldenrod, its stem and leaves red. September 23, 1852

Those pretty round-eyed fungus-spots on the upper leaves of the blue-stemmed goldenrod, contrasting with the few bright-yellow flowers above.  September 23, 1860 

The woodbine high on trees in the shade a delicate pink. September 23, 1852

The barberry bushes in Clematis Hollow are very beautiful now, with their wreaths of red or scarlet fruit drooping over a rock. September 23, 1852

The high blueberry bushes scattered here and there, the higher islands in Beck Stow’s Swamp, begin to paint it bright-red.   September 23, 1854

I find huckleberries on Conantum still sound and blackening the bushes. September 23, 1852

The fox eats huckleberries and so contributes very much to the dispersion of this shrub, for there were a number of entire berries in its dung in both the last two I chanced to notice  . . . Like ourselves, he likes two courses, rabbit and huckleberries.  September 23, 1860

Low blackberry vines generally red.  September 23, 1854

Very brilliant and remarkable now are the prinos berries, so brilliant and fresh when most things -- flowers and berries -- have withered.  September 23, 1854

Here is an end of its berries then. The hard frosts of the 21st and 22d have put an end to several kinds of plants, and probably berries, for this year.  September 23, 1854

Many plants fall with the first frosts.  This is the crisis when many kinds conclude their summer.  September 23, 1854

I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden. September 23, 1851

Small sparrows, with yellow on one side above eye in front and white belly,  . . .  crown divided by a light line. September 23, 1855

A little wren-like (or female goldfinch) bird on a.willow at Hubbard’s Causeway, eating a miller: with bright-yellow rump when wings open, and white on tail. Could it have been a yellow-rump warbler? September 23, 1855

The sarothra in bloom. September 23, 1852

The forget-me-not still.  September 23, 1852

Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint's Pond road in the woods.  September 23, 1857

I see yellow pine-sap, in the woods just east of where the beeches used to stand, just done, but the red variety is very common and quite fresh generally there. September 23, 1857

Red pine-sap by north side of Yew Path some ten rods east of yew, not long done. The root of the freshest has a decided checkerberry scent, and for a long time — a week after — in my chamber, the bruised plant has a very pleasant earthy sweetness. September 23, 1860

I hear from my chamber a screech owl about Monroe’s house this bright moonlight night, — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt perchance, a rapid trill, then subdued or smothered a note or two.   September 23, 1855.  

When the moon rose, what had appeared like immense boulders half a mile off in the horizon now looked by contrast no larger than nutshells or buri-nut against the moon’s disk, and she was the biggest boulder of all.   September 23, 1858 

When we had put out our bayberry fire, we heard a squawk, and, looking up, saw five geese fly low in the twilight over our heads.  September 23, 1858 

We then set out to find our way to Gloucester over the hills, and saw the comet very bright in the northwest.  September 23, 1858 

Donati’s Comet 1858

After going astray a little in the moonlight, we fell into a road which at length conducted us to the town. September 23, 1858 

How much longer a mile appears between two blue mountain peaks thirty or more miles off in the horizon than one would expect!   September 23, 1852

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Pine-sap and Tobacco-pipe

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blue-stemmed Goldenrod (solidago caesia)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Common Barberry

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

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

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

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, September Moonlight

*****

September 23, 2013

*****

The red undersides
of the white lily pads
exposed by the wind.
June 29, 1852

August 14, 1854 (“I hear the tremulous squealing scream of a screech owl in the Holden Woods.”)

August 14, 1856 (“Hypopitys, just beyond the last large (two-stemmed) chestnut at Saw Mill Brook, about done. Apparently a fungus like plant. It erects itself in seed.”)

August 23, 1858 (“See an abundance of pine-sap on the right of Pine-sap Path.”)

August 24,1854 ("The bright crimson-red undersides of the great white lily pads, turned up by the wind in broad fields on the sides of the stream, are a great ornament to the stream. It is not till August, methinks, that they are turned up conspicuously.”) 

August 25, 1859 ("I see, after the rain, when the leaves are rustling and glistening in the cooler breeze and clear air, quite a flock of (apparently) Fringilla socialis in the garden")

September 1, 1854 (" A still, cloudy, misty day, through which has fallen a very little rain this forenoon already. Now I notice a few faint-chipping sparrows, busily picking the seeds of weeds in the garden.")

September 9, 1857 (“C. brings me a small red hypopitys. It has a faint sweet, earthy, perhaps checkerberry, scent”)

September 13, 1857 (“Nabalus Fraseri, top of Cliffs, — a new plant, . . ."The nabalus family generally, apparently now in prime.”)

September 15, 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.”)

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 17, 1858 ("Methinks, too, that there are more sparrows in flocks now about in garden,")

September 22, 1854 ("The frosts come to ripen the year, the days, like fruits.")

September 25, 1859 ("The very crab-grass in our garden is for the most part a light straw-color and withered. . . and hundreds of sparrows (chip-birds ?) find their food amid it.") 

October 2, 1858 ("The garden is alive with migrating sparrows these mornings")

October 6, 1857 (“I see a great quantity of hypopitys, now all sere, along the path in the woods beyond. Call it Pine-Sap Path. It seems to have been a favorable season for it”); 

October 9, 1851 ("Heard two screech owls in the night")

October 14, 1858 ("On the top of Ball’s Hill, nearly half-way its length, the red pine-sap, quite fresh, apparently not long in bloom, the flower recurved. As last year, I suspect that this variety is later than the yellowish one, of which I have seen none for a long time.") 

November 10, 1858 ("In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple.")

November 25, 1857 ("Methinks there has been more pine-sap than usual the past summer.")

September 23, 2017

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 

September 22 <<<<<<<<  September 23 >>>>>>>  September 24

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, September 23

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 © 2009-2022

tinyurl.com/HDT23September