Nature is stung by God and the seed of man planted in her. September 4, 1854

 

Nature is Genial to Man

in which Henry Thoreau expresses the principle 

that the universe (Nature) 

is uniquely – necessarily – 

compatible to man 

(and all living things)

All men beholding a rainbow

begin to understand the significance

ofthe Greek name for the world,

-Kosmos, or beauty.

We live, as it were,

within the calyx of a flower.

August 6, 1852

I am a body

connected to all bodies

awake in the world.

 ~Zphx

September 4, 2018

Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. Walden

How adapted these forms and colors to my eye! A meadow and an island! I am made to love the pond and the meadow, as the wind is made to ripple the water. November 21, 1850

How adapted these forms and colors to our eyes . . . What are these things? February 14, 1851

The existence of man in nature is the divinest and most startling of all facts. Man, the crowning fact, the god we know. May 21, 1851

It is a certain faeryland where we live. You may walk out in any direction over the earth's surface, lifting your horizon, and everywhere your path, climbing the convexity of the globe, leads you between heaven and earth [toward] the light of the sun and stars and the habitations of man. I wonder that I ever get five miles on my way, the walk is so crowded with events and phenomena. June 7, 1851

My life was ecstasy. In youth, before I lost any of my senses, I can remember that I was all alive, and inhabited my body with inexpressible satisfaction; both its weariness and its refreshment were sweet to me This earth was the most glorious musical instrument, and I was audience to its strains. To have such sweet impressions made on us, such ecstasies begotten of the breezes! I can remember how I was astonished. I said to myself, — I said to other , “There comes into my mind such an indescribable , infinite , all - absorbing , divine , heavenly pleasure , a sense of elevation and expansion, and [ I ] have had nought to do with it . I perceive that I am dealt with by superior powers. July 16, 1851

Let us preserve, secure, protect the coincidence of our life with the life of nature. January 26, 1852

Why should just these sights and sounds accompany our life? April 18, 1852

What were the firefly's light, if it were not for darkness? The one implies the other. June 25, 1852

I hear the sound of a distant piano . . . By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, my being moves in a sphere of melody, my fancy and imagination are excited to an inconceivable degree. August 3, 1852

What are these rivers and hills, these hieroglyphics? August 23, 1852

I look out at my eyes, I come to my window, and I feel and breathe the fresh air. It is a fact equally glorious with the most inward experience. August 23, 1852

It is, in some degree, warmer after the first snow has come and banked up the houses and filled the crevices in the roof. There is something genial even in the first snow, and Nature seems to relent a little of her November harshness. Men, too, are disposed to give thanks for the bounties of the year all over the land. November 23, 1852

The heavens and the earth are one flower. The earth is the calyx, the heavens the corolla.  June 5, 1853

See some green galls on a goldenrod three quarters of an inch in diameter, shaped like a fruit or an Eastern temple, with two or three little worms inside, completely changing the destiny of the plant, showing the intimate relation between animal and vegetable life. The animal signifies its wishes by a touch, and the plant, instead of going on to blossom and bear its normal fruit, devotes itself to the service of the insect and becomes its cradle and food. It suggests that Nature is a kind of gall, that the Creator stung her and man is the grub she is destined to house and feed. The plant rounds off and paints the gall with as much care and love as its own flower and fruit, admiring it perchance even more. July 30, 1853

For all Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist her. "Nature" is but another name for health, and the seasons are but different states of health. August 23, 1853

Who placed us with eyes between a microscopic and a telescopic world? February 19, 1854

Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Walden

A sweet scent fills the air from the expanding leafets or some other source. The earth is all fragrant as one flower. And bobolinks tinkle in the air. Nature now is perfectly genial to man. May 16, 1854

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. June 16, 1854

I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool, and Nature seems really more genial. My mistress is at a more respectful distance, for, by the coolness of the air, I am more continent in my thought and held aloof from her, while by the genial warmth of the sun I am more than ever attracted to her. August 29, 1854

Nature is stung by God and the seed of man planted in her. September 4, 1854

I am affected by the thought that the earth nurses these [turtle] eggs. They are planted in the earth, and the earth takes care of them; she is genial to them and does not kill them. It suggests a certain vitality and intelligence in the earth, which I had not realized. This mother is not merely inanimate and inorganic. Though the immediate mother turtle abandons her offspring, the earth and sun are kind to them. The old turtle on which the earth rests takes care of them while the other waddles off. Earth was not made poisonous and deadly to them. The earth has some virtue in it; when seeds are put into it, they germinate; when turtles’ eggs, they hatch in due time. Though the mother turtle remained and brooded them, it would still nevertheless be the universal world turtle which, through her, cared for them as now. Thus the earth is the mother of all creatures. Journal, September 9, 1854

A warmth begins to be reflected from the partially dried ground here and there in the sun in sheltered places, very cheering to invalids who have weak lungs, who think they may weather it till summer now. Nature is more genial to them. February 21, 1855

What a delicious sound! It is not merely crow calling to crow, for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls. Ah, bless the Lord, O my soul! bless him for wildness, for crows that will not alight within gunshot! and bless him for hens, too, that croak and cackle in the yard! January 12, 1855

I am struck by the perfect confidence and success of nature. The existence of these delicate creatures [redpolls], their adaptedness to their circumstances. Here is no imperfection. The winter, with its snow and ice, is as it was designed and made to be. December 11, 1855

I have never got over my surprise that I should have been born into the most estimable place in all the world, and in the very nick of time, too. December 5, 1856

What is the relation between a bird and the ear that appreciates its melody, to whom, perchance, it is more charming and significant than to any else? Certainly they are intimately related, and the one was made for the other. It is a natural fact . . . I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other. February 20, 1857

How rarely a man's love for nature becomes a ruling principle with him, like a youth's affection for a maiden, but more enduring! All nature is my bride. That nature which to one is a stark and ghastly solitude is a sweet, tender, and genial society to another. April 23, 1857

Think of that (of yesterday), — to have constantly before you, receding as fast as you advance, a bow formed of a myriad crystalline mirrors on the surface of the snow!! What miracles, what beauty surrounds us! Then, another day, to do all your walking knee-deep in perfect six-rayed crystals of surpassing beauty but of ephemeral duration, which have fallen from the sky. January 30, 1860

Summer is gone with all its infinite wealth, and still nature is genial to man. Still he beholds the same inaccessible beauty around him. Simply to see to a distant horizon through a clear air, – the fine outline of a distant hill or a blue mountain-top through some new vista, -– this is wealth enough for one afternoon. November 22, 1860

*****

There once was a time

when the beauty and the music

were all within me.

I sat and listened

to a positive though faint

and distant music.

I sat and listened

possessed by the melody,

a song in my thoughts.

This was a time when

I felt a joy that knew not

its own origin.

A pleasure, a joy, 

an existence which I had

not procured myself.

Astonished, I saw 

that I am dealt with by 

superior powers.

That this earth is a

musical instrument, and 

I its audience. 

zphx 20190521

See also

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A body awake in the world.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I am a rock

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

We are made to love

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Nature is genial to man (the anthropic principle)

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

https://tinyurl.com/HDTanthropic

 

-L

A Book of the Seasons: September 4 (asters goldenrod berries friuts nuts, and the detection of analogy.)

 

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 4

These mornings I move

into an eastern chamber

to sit in the sun.

September 4, 1860

September 4, 2018
(avesong)

Topping the corn, which has been going on some days, now reveals the yellow and yellowing pumpkins. This is a genuine New England scene. The earth blazes not only with sun-flowers but with sun-fruits. September 4, 1859

It is cooler these days and nights, and I move into an eastern chamber in the morning, that I may sit in the sun. September 4, 1860

I feel like a melon or other fruit laid in the sun to ripen. I grow, not gray, but yellow. September 4, 1860

5.30 A. M. – To Nawshawtuct by river. Roman wormwood's yellow dust on my clothes. September 4, 1853

Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp, — and on them all you are pretty sure to see one or two humblebees. They become more prominent and interesting in the scarcity of purple flowers.  September 4, 1859 

On many you see also the splendid goldfinch, yellow and black like the humble-bee. The thistles beloved of humblebees and goldfinches. September 4, 1859  

The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces. September 4, 1860 

Butterflies in road a day or two September 4, 1856 

Carried a pail this afternoon to collect goldenrods and berries. September 4, 1853

There are, perhaps, four kinds of goldenrod in C. Hubbard's Swamp Path. September 4, 1853

I think I see two kinds of three-ribbed goldenrod (beside Canadensis). September 4, 1859

In the Well Meadow Swamp, many apparent Aster miser, yet never inclining to red there (in the leaf) and sometimes with larger flowers (five eighths of an inch [in] diameter) and slenderer cauline leaves than common, out apparently almost as long as miser elsewhere. September 4, 1859

The Aster miser is a pretty flower, with its commonly wide and loose branches, variegated or parti-colored with its white rays and broad purplish (and yellow) disks giving it a modestly parti-colored look, with green leaves of sufficient breadth to relieve the flowers.  September 4, 1853

Would it not be worth the while to devote one day each year to collecting with pains the different kinds of asters, — perhaps about this time, — and another to the goldenrods? September 4, 1853

The crowded clusters of shrub oak acorns are very handsome now, the rich, wholesome brown of the cups contrasting with the now clear green acorns, sometimes twenty- four with a breadth of three inches. September 4, 1853

The purple culms and spikes of the crab-grass or finger-grass, spreading and often almost prostrate under our feet in sandy paths and causeways,. . . when, pacing over the sandy railroad causeway, I look down and find myself treading on the purple culms of the crab-grass, I am reminded of the maturity of the year. September 4, 1859

See a very large mass of spikenard berries fairly ripening, eighteen inches long. September 4, 1859 

Aralia racemosa [Spikenard] berries just ripe . . . not edible.   September 4, 1856

Arum in prime. September 4, 1853 

Corner Spring Swamp . . .There are many splendid scarlet arum berries there now in prime, forming a dense ovate head on a short peduncle; the individual berries of various sizes. September 4, 1856 

Arum berries ripe. September 4, 1857

China-like berries of cornel along the river now abundant, some cymes wholly white; also the panicled there and in swamps, though its little red (?) fingery stems are oftenest bare, but are pretty enough, perhaps, to take the place of the berries. September 4, 1853. 

The handsomest and most perfect Cornus circinata there that I know, now apparently its fruit in prime, hardly light-blue but delicate bluish-white. September 4, 1857

Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen. September 4, 1857 

The Cornus sericea and C. paniculata are rather peculiar for turning to a dull purple on the advent of cooler weather and frosts, in the latter part of August and first part of September. The latter, which grows at the bottom of our frostiest hollows, turns a particularly clear dark purple, an effect plainly attributable to frost. September 4, 1859

The black choke-berries, as also choke-cherries, are stale. September 4, 1853

Where are the robins and red-wing blackbirds of late? I see no flocks of them; not one of the latter, and only a few solitary robins about wild cherry trees. September 4. 1859

The two-leaved Solomon's-seal has just begun to redden; so the largest one. September 4, 1853.

The creeping juniper berries are now a hoary green but full-grown. September 4, 1853

The scarlet thorn is in many places quite edible and now a deep scarlet. September 4, 1853

The lycopodium now sheds its pollen commonly. September 4, 1853 

The Lycopodium complanatum sheds pollen Sepember 4, 1859

Polygonum and medeola now. September 4, 1853.

Carrion-flower in prime. September 4, 1853

Feverwort now. September 4, 1853

The fever-bush is conspicuously flower-budded. September 4, 1856

Indian hemp out of bloom. September 4, 1856

.
Rose hips generally beginning; and the two primroses beginning. September 4, 1853

Elder in prime, and cranberry. September 4, 1853

Three or four plants are peculiar now for bearing plentifully their fruit in drooping cymes, viz. the elder berry and the silky cornel and the Viburnum Lentago and Solanum Dulcamara.  September 4, 1859

Maple viburnum fully ripe, like the dentatum. September 4, 1853

I see where squirrels have eaten green sweet viburnum berries on the wall, together with hazelnuts. The former, gathered red, turn dark purple and shrivelled, like raisins, in the house, and are edible, but chiefly seed. September 4, 1856

Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare. September 4, 1853

The hawks are soaring at the Cliffs. I think I never hear this peculiar, more musical scream, such as the jay appears to imitate, in the spring, only at and after midsummer when the young begin to fly. September 4, 1853

Already, long before sunset, I feel the dew falling in that cold calla swamp. September 4, 1857

Improve the opportunity to draw analogies. There are innumerable avenues to a perception of the truth. All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy. September 4-7, 1851 

I feel that the juices of the fruits which I have eaten, the melons and apples, have ascended to my brain and are stimulating it. They give me a heady force. Now I can write. September 4-7, 1851

I think I could write a poem to be called Concord. For argument I should have the River, the Woods, the Ponds, the Hills,  the Fields, the Swamps and Meadows' the Streets and Buildings and the Villagers. Then Morning, Noon and Evening, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, Night Indian Summer, and the Mountains in the Horizon. September 4, 1841 

Full moon; bats flying about; skaters and water bugs like sparks of fire on the surface between us and the moon. September 4, 1854

September 4, 2019

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:

 September

September Moods

September Moonlight

Young Birds

  The hen-hawk 

The Lycopodiums

  Elder-berries

Viburnum lentago (nannyberry)

Arum Berries

  the Shrub Oak

 Two-leaved Solomon's Seal ( Canada mayflower)

the Goldfinch

  the Thistles

Yellow Butterflies

Bees

The Luxury of  Bathing

  Nature is genial to man (the anthropic principle)

*****

September 4, 2023

July 18, 1852 ("The Cerasus Virginiana, or choke-cherry, is turning, nearly ripe.")
July 19, 1854 ("Black choke-berry, several days.")
July 30, 1860 ("Am glad to press my way through Miles's Swamp. Thickets of choke-berry bushes higher than my head, with many of their lower leaves already red")
August 5, 1856 ("Choke-cherries near . . . begin to be ripe, though still red. They are scarcely edible, but their beauty atones for it. See those handsome racemes of ten or twelve cherries each, dark glossy red, semi- transparent. You love them not the less because they are not quite palatable.")
August 5, 1858 ("Choke-berries, fair to the eye but scarcely palatable, hang far above your head, weighing down the bushes.")
August 11, 1852 ("I am attracted by the clear dark-green leaves of the fever-bush.”);
August 12, 1858 ("I eat the blueberry, but I am also interested in the rich-looking glossy black choke-berries which nobody eats, but which bend down the bushes on every side,—sweetish berries with a dry, and so choking, taste. Some of the bushes are more than a dozen feet high.")
August 15, 1852 ("The red choke-berry is small and green still. I plainly distinguish it, also, by its woolly under side.")
August 19, 1852 (The clear dark-green leaves of the fever-bush overhang the stream.”)
August 21, 1854 ("Spikenard berries are now mahogany-color. ")

August 21, 1853. ("The polygonatum berries have been a bluish-green some time. Do they turn still?")
August 21, 1854 ("Red choke-berries are dried black; ripe some time ago. ")

August 22, 1854.("Arum berries ripe")
August 22, 1852.("The arum berries are mostly devoured, apparently by birds.")
August 22, 1852.("The panicled cornel berries now white.")
August 22, 1852. ("I am struck by the handsome and abundant clusters of yet green shrub oak acorns. Some are whitish. How much food for some creatures!")
August 22, 1852.("The two-leaved Solomon's-seal berries begin to be red.")
August 25, 1854 ("Also the choke-berries are very abundant [at Shadbush Meadow], but mostly dried black.");
August 26, 1860 ("I thread my way through the blueberry swamp in front of Martial Miles's. . . . And now a far greater show of choke-berries is here, rich to see.")
August 27, 1858 ("I see round-leaved cornel fruit on Heywood Peak, now half China-blue and half white, each berry.")
August 27, 1853 ('Topping corn now reveals the yellowing pumpkins.")
August 28, 1859 ("Pumpkins begin to be yellow.");
August 28, 1856 ("See the great oval masses of scarlet berries of the arum now in the meadows.")

August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river. ")
August 28, 1856 ("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.")

August 29, 1859 ("It is so cool a morning that for the first time I move into the entry to sit in the sun")
August 31, 1858 ("Red choke-berry, apparently not long. ")
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.”)
September 1,1856 ("Red choke-berries, which last further up in this swamp, with their peculiar glossy red and squarish form, are really very handsome.")
September 1, 1859 ("The spikenard berries in the shade at Saw Mill have but just begun to turn.")
September 1, 1859 ("Red choke-berry ripe.")
September 1, 1856 ("I think it stands about thus with asters and golden-rods now.”);
September 1, 1851("The fruit of the trilliums is very handsome.. . .a dense crowded cluster of many ovoid berries turning from green to scarlet or bright brick color.") ;
September 1, 1859 ("The scarlet fruit of the arum spots the swamp floor.")
September 1, 1851 ("Then there is the mottled fruit of the clustered Solomon's-seal, ")
September 1. 1856 ("A few medeola berries ripe.")

September 2, 1851 ("A writer, a man writing, is the scribe of all nature; he is the corn and the grass and the atmosphere writing.")

September 2, 1853 ("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 2, 1852 ("Rose hips begin to be handsome")
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.”)
September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain . . .”)
September 3, 1854 (“I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier.”)
September 3, 1853 ("To fill my basket with the neglected but beautiful fruit of the various species of cornels and viburnums, poke, arum, medeola, thorns, etc.")
September 3, 1856 (“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. ”)
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.")

 September 3, 1860 ("Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, day, -- a, cloudless sky, a clear air, with, maybe, veins of coolness. ")

Nature is stung by 

God and the seed of

man planted in her.

 September 4, 1854

September 5, 1856 ("Will not the prime of goldenrods and asters be just before the first severe frosts ?")

September 6, 1854 (" I think I may say that large Solomon’s-seal berries have begun to be red.")

September 6, 1857 ("I see in the swamp black choke berries twelve feet high at least and in fruit.")
September 6, 1858 ("Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect.")
September 6, 1859 ("A half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops.")
September 7, 1860 ("Common rose hips as handsome as ever")

 September 9, 1852 ("The goldenrods resound with the hum of bees and other insects.")

 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")

September 13, 1859 ("I see some shrub oak acorns turned dark on the bushes and showing their meridian lines, but generally acorns of all kinds are green yet. ")

September 14, 1855 ("I scare from an oak by the side of the Close a young hen-hawk, which, launching off with a scream and a heavy flight, alights on the topmost plume of a large pitch pine in the swamp northward")

September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? There are eight or ten in sight from the Cliffs.")

September 17, 1858 (“Cooler weather now for two or three days, so that I am glad to sit in the sun on the east side of the house mornings.”)

September 18, 1852 ("In the forenoons I move into a chamber on the east side of the house, and so follow the sun round.”)

September 18, 1858 ("The earth is yellowing in the September sun.")

September 20, 1859 ("Where are the red-wings now? I have not seen nor heard one for a long time")
September 21, 1859 ("Acorns have been falling very sparingly ever since September 1, but are mostly wormy. They are as interesting now on the shrub oak (green) as ever.")
September 24, 1856 (“Methinks it stands thus with goldenrods and asters now”);
September 24, 1856 ("Arum berries still fresh")
September 27, 1852 ("The medeola berries are common now, and the large red berries of the panicled Solomon's-seal.")

September 28, 1858 ("The small shrub oak . . . with its pretty acorns striped dark and light alternately.")
September 28, 1856 ("The arum berries are still fresh and abundant, perhaps in their prime. A large cluster is two and a half inches long by two wide and rather flattish . . . These singular vermilion-colored berries, about a hundred of them, surmount a purple bag on a peduncle six or eight inches long.")
September 29, 1854 ("Bass berries dry and brown.")
September 30, 1859 ("Most shrub oak acorns browned.")
October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit. The . . .pretty fruit, varying in size, pointedness, and downiness, being now generally turned brown, with light, converging meridional lines . . . .Now is the time for shrub oak acorns.")
October 8, 1856 ("The following is the condition of the asters and goldenrods")
October 14, 1859 ("The shrub oak acorns are now all fallen, — only one or two left on,")
October 19, 1859 ("Though the dark-blue, or ripe, creeping juniper berries are chiefly on the lower part of the branches, I see fresh green ones on old wood.")

October 20, 1852 ("The small red Solomon's-seal berries spot the ground here and there amid the dry leaves.")
October 28, 1857 ("Again, I hear the scream of a hen-hawk, soaring and circling onward.")
November 2, 1853 ("The shrub oak cups which I notice to-day have lost their acorns.")

Nature is a kind of gall—

the Creator stung her and

 man is the grub she is destined

 to house and feed

July 30, 1853

September 4, 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 

September 3 <<<<<<<<<    September 4    >>>>>  September 5

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  September 4

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/HDT04September 

The hawks are soaring at the Cliffs.

September 4.

5.30 A. M. – To Nawshawtuct by river.

Roman wormwood's yellow dust on my clothes.

Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare.

I do not succeed in making two varieties of Polygonum amphibium.

All mine, from three inches above water and floating to three feet high on dry land, are apparently one.

The first, at any rate, must be aquaticum, — floating, nearly smooth, and leaves more heart- shaped.

It appears by insensible gradations to pass into the other.

See one or two lilies yet.

The fragrance of a grape-vine branch, with ripe grapes on it, which I have brought home, fills the whole house. This fragrance is exceedingly rich, surpassing the flavor of any grape.


P. M. – To Cliffs via Hubbard ' s Swamp.

The skunk-cabbage fruit lies flat and black now in the meadow.

The Aster miser is a pretty flower, with its commonly wide and loose branches, variegated or parti-colored with its white rays and broad purplish (and yellow) disks giving it a modestly parti-colored look, with green leaves of sufficient breadth to relieve the flowers.

Would it not be worth the while to devote one day each year to collecting with pains the different kinds of asters, — perhaps about this time, — and another to the goldenrods? 

In Potter's dry pasture I saw the ground black with blackbirds (troopials?). As I approach, the front rank rises and flits a little further back into the midst of the flock, — it rolls up on the edges, — and, being thus alarmed, they soon take to flight, with a loud rippling rustle, but soon alight again, the rear wheeling swiftly into place like well- drilled soldiers. Instead of being an irregular and disorderly crowd, they appear to know and keep their places and wheel with the precision of drilled troops.

The lycopodium now sheds its pollen commonly.

The hawks are soaring at the Cliffs. I think I never hear this peculiar, more musical scream, such as the jay appears to imitate, in the spring, only at and after midsummer when the young begin to fly.

In Hubbard ' s Swamp Path.

Probably Solidago speciosa, though not yet in blossom there, very broad leaves, the radical- like plantain, covering the ground, and for the most part no more.

Carried a pail this afternoon to collect goldenrods and berries.

The skunk-cabbage common.

Hazels high time to gather; bushes browned.

After handling some beaked hazelnuts the other day, observed my hand covered with extremely fine, shining, glass- like bristles.

Arum in prime.

The crowded clusters of shrub oak acorns are very handsome now, the rich, wholesome brown of the cups contrasting with the now clear green acorns, sometimes twenty- four with a breadth of three inches.

China-like berries of cornel along the river now abundant, some cymes wholly white; also the panicled there and in swamps, though its little red (?) fingery stems are oftenest bare, but are pretty enough, perhaps, to take the place of the berries.

The black choke-berries, as also choke-cherries, are stale.

The two- leaved Solomon's-seal has just begun to redden; so the largest one.

The creeping juniper berries are now a hoary green but full-grown.

The scarlet thorn is in many places quite edible and now a deep scarlet.

Polygonum and medeola now.

Green briar only begins to turn.

Viburnum nudum rather stale.

Clintonia probably about gone.

Carrion-flower in prime.

Maple viburnum fully ripe, like the dentatum.

Aralia hispida getting old.

Feverwort now.

Rose hips generally beginning; and the two primroses beginning.

Elder in prime, and cranberry.

Smooth sumach stale.

Celtis green.

There are, perhaps, four kinds of goldenrod in C. Hubbard's Swamp Path which I am not certain about: one, which I have called S. puberula, with reddish stem; another, tall and slender, smooth, with a pyramidal panicle with four to six broad rays, leaves lanceolate, dwindling to mere bracts, appressed and entirish above, virgata-like, which I will call S. virgata, — though its leaves are not entire, — till I examine the stricta again; also another, with thin lanceolate leaves, symmetrically tapering at each end, rough on the edges and serrate, with, I believe, six or seven rays (specimen now withered), and this I have already named for convenience ulmifolia, but the leaves are not elm-like.

Also another, with eight to twelve (?) rays and much narrower leaves than the above three, very taper-pointed, sessile, and with margined petiole and wavy upper, entire lower, lanceolate-spatulate, and toothed slightly near end.

Has the stricta leafets in the axils?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1853



Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare. See September 6, 1858 ("Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect."); September 6, 1859 ("A half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops.")

 

The hawks are soaring at the Cliffs. See September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? There are eight or ten in sight from the Cliffs.");  October 28, 1857  ("Again, I hear the scream of a hen-hawk, soaring and circling onward.")

Would it not be worth the while to devote one day each year to collecting with pains the different kinds of asters, — perhaps about this time, — and another to the goldenrods? See September 1, 1856 ("I think it stands about thus with asters and golden-rods now.”); September 24, 1856 (“Methinks it stands thus with goldenrods and asters now”); October 8, 1856 ("The following is the condition of the asters and goldenrods")

The earth itself appears to me as a ripe purple fruit.

September 4. 

P. M. — To Well Meadow and Walden.

The purple culms and spikes of the crab-grass or finger-grass, spreading and often almost prostrate under our feet in sandy paths and causeways, are where the purple cuticle of the earth again shows itself, and we seem to be treading in our vintage whether we will or not. Earth has donned the purple. 

When, walking over some dry field (some time since), I looked down and saw the yellowish tuft of the Fimbristylis capillaris, with its spreading inverted cone of capillary culms, like the upper half of an hour-glass, but still more, when, pacing over the sandy railroad causeway, I look down and find myself treading on the purple culms of the crab-grass, I am reminded of the maturity of the year. 

We have now experienced the full effects of heat such as we have in this latitude. The earth itself appears to me as a ripe purple fruit, — though somewhat dusty here, — and I may have rubbed the bloom off with my feet. But if Bacchus can ever stand our climate, this must be his season. 

Topping the corn, which has been going on some days, now reveals the yellow and yellowing pumpkins. This is a genuine New England scene. The earth blazes not only with sun-flowers but with sun-fruits. 

The four-leaved loosestrife, which is pretty generally withering and withered, seems to have dried up, — to suffer peculiarly from the annual drought, — perhaps both on account of its tenuity and the sandiness or dryness of its locality. 

The Lycopodium complanatum sheds pollen [sic]. 

Where are the robins and red-wing blackbirds of late? I see no flocks of them; not one of the latter, and only a few solitary robins about wild cherry trees, etc.

 A few yew berries, but they appear (?) to be drying up. The most wax-like and artificial and surprising of our wild berries, — as surprising as to find currants on hemlocks. 

In the Well Meadow Swamp, many apparent Aster miser, yet never inclining to red there (in the leaf) and sometimes with larger flowers (five eighths of an inch [in] diameter) and slenderer cauline leaves than common, out apparently almost as long as miser elsewhere. 

The swamp thistle (Cirsium muticum) is apparently in its prime. One or two on each has faded, but many more are to come. Some are six feet high and have radical leaves nearly two feet long. Even these in the shade have humblebees on them. 

You see small flocks of ducks, probably wood ducks, in the smaller woodland ponds now and for a week, as I at Andromeda Ponds, and can get nearer to them than in the spring. 

The Cornus sericea and C. paniculata are rather peculiar for turning to a dull purple on the advent of cooler weather and frosts, in the latter part of August and first part of September. The latter, which grows at the bottom of our frostiest hollows, turns a particularly clear dark purple, an effect plainly attributable to frost. 

I see it this afternoon in the dry, deep hollow just west of the middle Andromeda Pond. 

I think I see two kinds of three-ribbed goldenrod (beside Canadensis), both being commonly smooth-stemmed below and downy above, but one has very fine or small rays as compared with the other. They appear to be both equally common now. The fine-rayed at Sedge Path. 

See a very large mass of spikenard berries fairly ripening, eighteen inches long. 

Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp, — and on them all you are pretty sure to see one or two humblebees. They be come more prominent and interesting in the scarcity of purple flowers. (On many you see also the splendid goldfinch, yellow and black (?) like the humble-bee.) The thistles beloved of humblebees and goldfinches. 

Three or four plants are peculiar now for bearing plentifully their fruit in drooping cymes, viz. the elder berry and the silky cornel and the Viburnum Lentago and Solanum Dulcamara. 

The other cornels do not generally come to droop before they lose their fruit. Nor do the viburnums droop much. The fruit of the Cornus sericea is particularly interesting to me, and not too profuse, — small cymes of various tints half concealed amid the leaves.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1859

The purple culms and spikes of the crab-grass or finger-grass. See September 4, 1858 ("P[anicum]. sanguinale, crab grass, finger grass, or purple panic grass")

The earth blazes not only with sun-flowers but with sun-fruits. See October 6, 1857 ("The very pumpkins yellowing in the fields become a feature in the landscape, and thus they have shone, maybe, for a thousand years here.")

Where are the robins and red-wing blackbirds of late? I see no flocks of them; not one of the latter. See September 20, 1859 ("Where are the red-wings now? I have not seen nor heard one for a long time")

The swamp thistle (Cirsium muticum) is apparently in its prime. See July 29, 1857 (" [the Maine Woods--} Cirsium muticum, or swamp thistle, abundantly in bloom."); September 13, 1854 ("I find the large thistle (Cirsium muticum) out of bloom,")

 The Cornus sericea and C. paniculata are rather peculiar for turning to a dull purple on the advent of cooler weather and frosts, in the latter part of August and first part of September. The fruit of the Cornus sericea is particularly interesting to me, and not too profuse, — small cymes of various tints half concealed amid the leaves. See September 4, 1857 ("Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen").; September 1, 1854 ("The Cornus sericea berries are now in prime, of different shades of blue, lighter or darker, and bluish white."); August 31, 1856 (“The Cornus sericea, with its berries just turning, is generally a dull purple now "); August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river.”)

Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp, — . . . The thistles beloved of humblebees and goldfinches. See September 4, 1860  ("The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles.See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch

Purple panic grass.

September 4.

Much rain, with thunder and lightning. 

September 4, 2018
(avesong)

Our large-fruited sparganium is evidently S. ramosum, still a little, at least, in flower. 

My large grass of the riverside with a narrow or spike-like appressed panicle, long since out, at the end of a long bare culm, leafy below, is apparently Phalaris arundinacea. 

Piper grass is apparently Triticum repens; now done.

What I called Panicum capillare (after Hoar, without examining) is P. sanguinale, crab grass, finger grass, or purple panic grass. Panicum capillare (very different and like Eragrostis capillaris, the fine purple grass) is now in prime in garden.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1858

(Eragrostis capillaris, the fine purple grass) See August 13, 1860 ("Purple grass (Eragrostis pectinacca), two or three days. E. capillaris, say as much.")