That coarse mustard-like branched plant with racemes of small yellow flowers.

 

July 15.

July 15, 2019

Common form of arrowhead.

The Rumex obtusifolius shows its single grain now.

Near Loring's ram that coarse mustard-like branched plant, one or two feet high, with racemes of small yellow flowers, -- perhaps Gray's Nasturtium palustre or Bigelow's Sisymbrium amphibium, -- in seed and in blossom.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 15, 1853

The Rumex obtusifolius shows its single grain now. See December 31. 1859 ("One of the two large docks, perhaps obtusifolius, commonly holds its seeds now, but they are very ready to fall. ")

That coarse mustard-like branched plant. See June 14, 1854 ("What is that sisymbrium or mustard-like plant at foot of Loring's?")

July 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 15

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 © 2009-2021

Bacon says he has seen pitch pine pollen in a cloud going over a hill a mile off

June 14.

P. M.--To lime-kiln with Mr. Bacon of Natick.

Sisymbrium amphibium (?) of Bigelow, some days, at foot of Loring's land.

Common mallows well out; how long? 

What is that sisymbrium or mustard-like plant at foot of Loring 's ?

Erigeron strigosus (??) out earliest, say yesterday.

Observed a ribwort near Simon Brown's barn by road, with elongated spikes and only pistillate flowers.

Hedge-mustard, how long? Pepper grass, how long? Some time.

Scirpus lacustris, maybe some days.

I see a black caterpillar on the black willows nowadays with red spots.

Mr. Bacon thinks that cherry-birds are abundant where cankerworms are.

Says that only female mosquitoes sting (not his observation alone); that there are one or two arbor-vitæs native in Natick.

He has found the Lygodium palmatum there.

There is one pure-blooded Indian woman there. Pearl [?], I think he called her.

He thought those the exuviæ of mosquitoes on the river weeds under water.

Makes his own microscopes and uses garnets.

He called the huckleberry-apple a parasitic plant, — pterospora, – which grown on and changed the nature of the huckleberry.

Observed a diseased Andromeda paniculata twig prematurely in blossom.

Caught a locust, — properly harvest-fly (cicada), — drumming on a birch, which Bacon and Hill (of Waltham) think like the septendecim, except that ours has not red eyes but black ones. 

Harris's other kind, the dog-day cicada (canicularis), or harvest-fly. He says it begins to be heard invariably at the beginning of dog-days; he (Harris) heard it for many years in succession with few exceptions on the 25th of July.

Bacon says he has seen pitch pine pollen in a cloud going over a hill a mile off; is pretty sure.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 14, 1854

To lime-kiln with Mr. Bacon of Natick. See August 24, 1857 ("Ride to Austin Bacon’s, Natick.")
Makes his own microscopes and uses garnets. See August 24. 1857 ("A. Bacon showed me a drawing apparatus which he said he invented, very simple and convenient, also microscopes and many glasses for them which he made.")

Bacon says there are one or two arbor-vitæs native in Natick. See August 24, 1857 ("B[acon] says that the arbor-vitae grows indigenously in pretty large patches in Needham")

Thee dog-day cicada begins to be heard invariably at the beginning of dog-days; he (Harris) heard it for many years in succession with few exceptions on the 25th of July. See note to July 22, 1860 ("First locust heard.")

Bacon says he has seen pitch pine pollen in a cloud going over a hill a mile off; See. June 3, 1857 ("The pitch pine at Hemlocks is in bloom. . . .As usual, when I jar them the pollen rises in a little cloud about the pistillate flowers and the tops of the twigs, there being a little wind"); June 9, 1850 ("I see the pollen of the pitch pine now beginning to cover the surface of the pond.")