A Ramble over the Peterboro Hills.

Spikenard, Mt. Prichard

September 6, 2020

September 6. 

Girls picking hops in Townsend.

Some fields are completely yellow — one mass of yellow — from the solidago. It is the prevailing flower the traveller sees.

Walked from Mason Village over the mountain tops to Peterboro.

Saw, sailing over Mason Village about 10 A. M., a white-headed and white-tailed eagle with black wings, —  a grand sight.

The “doubly compound racemed panicles” of the spikenard berries, varnish-colored berries, or color of varnished mahogany.

Met a crazy man, probably being carried to a hospital, who must take us both by the hand and tell us how the spirit of God had descended on him and given him all the world, and he was going to make every man a present of half a million, etc., etc. 

High blackberries by the roadside abundant still, the long, sweet, mulberry-shaped ones, mostly confined to the road, and very grateful to the walker.

A stone by the roadside in Temple, whitewashed, with an inscription in black, evincing the vulgarity of the Yankees, “Here Jesse Spofford was killed,” etc., etc., not telling how. Thus we record only the trivial, not the important event, as the advent of a thought. Who cares whether Jesse Spofford was killed or not, if he does not know whether he was worthy to live?

A man in Peterboro told me that his father told him that Monadnock used to be covered with forest, that fires ran through it and killed the turf; then the trees were blown down, and their roots turned up and formed a dense and impenetrable thicket in which the wolves abounded. They came down at night, killed sheep, etc., and returned to their dens, whither they could not be pursued, before morning; till finally they set fire to this thicket, and it made the greatest fire they had ever had in the county, and drove out all the wolves, which have not troubled them since.

He himself had seen one wolf killed there when he was a boy.

They kill now raccoons, hedgehogs, and wildcats there.

I thought that I did not see so great a proportion of forest from their hilltops as about Concord, to which they agreed. I should say their hills were uncommonly rocky, more stone than soil.



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 6, 1852

Girls picking hops in Townsend. See September 5, 1856 ("Hereabouts women and children are already picking hops in the fields, in the shade of large white sheets, like sails.")

Some fields are completely yellow — one mass of yellow — from the solidago. September 7, 1858 ("It is an early September afternoon,. . . the field is yellowed with a Xerxean army of Solidago nemoralis between me and the sun . . .The dry deserted fields are one mass of yellow, like a color shoved to one side on Nature’s palette."); September 12, 1859 (" Many a dry field now, like that of Sted Buttrick's on the Great Fields, is 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. It is the greatest mass of conspicuous flowers in the year,")

A white-headed and white-tailed eagle with black wings, — a grand sight. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White-headed Eagle

The spikenard berries, varnish-colored berries, or color of varnished mahogany. See August 21, 1854 ("Spikenard berries are now mahogany-color. "); September 4, 1856 ("Aralia racemosa berries just ripe . . . not edible. "); September 4, 1859 ("See a very large mass of spikenard berries fairly ripening, eighteen inches long.")

High blackberries by the roadside abundant still. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

Walked from Mason Village over the mountain tops to Peterboro. See September 7, 1852 ("Across lots to Monadnock, some half-dozen miles in a straight line from Peterboro"); September 27, 1852 ("Who can believe that the mountain peak which he beholds fifty miles off in the horizon, rising far and faintly blue above an intermediate range, while he stands on his trivial native hills or in the dusty high way, can be the same with that which he looked up at once near at hand from a gorge in the midst of primitive woods? For a part of two days I travelled across lots once, loitering by the way, through primitive wood and swamps over the highest peak of the Peterboro Hills to Monadnock, . . .I cannot realize that on the tops of those cool blue ridges are in abundance berries still, bluer than themselves, as if they borrowed their blueness from their locality. From the mountains we do not discern our native hills; but from our native hills we look out easily to the far blue mountains, which seem to preside over them. "); See also  February 21,1855 ("I look at the Peterboro mountains with my glass from Fair Haven Hill. I think that there can be no more arctic scene than these mountains in the edge of the horizon completely crusted over with snow, with the sun shining on them, seen through a telescope over bare, russet fields and dark forests, with perhaps a house on some remote, bare ridge seen against them.") 

They set fire to this thicket . . ., and drove out all the wolves, which have not troubled them since. See March 23, 1856 ("But when I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here, — the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc., — I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country.")

Gray goldenrod at Hosmer's secluded turtle field near the bridge,

September 2. 

P . M . – To Annursnack. 

Solidago nemoralis apparently in prime, and S. stricta  The former covers A. Hosmer's secluded turtle field near the bridge, together with johnswort, now merely lingering.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 2, 1860

Solidago nemoralis [Gray Goldenrod] apparently in prime. See August 18, 1854 ("The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields.”); September 1, 1856 ("S. nemoralis, not quite in prime, but very abundant."); September 6, 1858 ("Solidago nemoralis is apparently in prime on Lupine Hill; some of it past. It is swarming with butterflies, — yellow, small red, and large, — fluttering over it"); September 7, 1858 ("It is an early September afternoon, melting warm and sunny; the thousands of grasshoppers leaping before you reflect gleams of light; a little distance off the field is yellowed with a Xerxean army of Solidago nemoralis between me and the sun"); September 12, 1859 ("The golden-rod on the top and the slope of the hill are the Solidago nemoralis . . . Many a dry field now, like that of Sted Buttrick's on the Great Fields, is 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. It is the greatest mass of conspicuous flowers in the year, uniformly from one to two feet high, just rising above the withered grass all over the largest fields, now when pumpkins and other yellow fruits begin to gleam, now before the woods are noticeably changed.")   See also September 27, 1857 ("Solidago nemoralis nearly done"); October 6, 1858 ("Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost."); October 8, 1856 ("Asters and goldenrods are now scarce; no longer that crowd along the low roadsides. . . S. nemoralis, done, many hoary, though a very few flowers linger."); October 23, 1853 (" I notice these flowers still along the railroad causeway: fresh sprouts from the root of the Solidago nemoralis in bloom"); November 10, 1858 ("Some very handsome Solidago nemoralis in bloom on Fair Haven Hill. (Look for these late flowers —November flowers — on hills, above frost.)")

A. Hosmer's secluded turtle field near the bridge, See October 10, 1858 (" . . .the turtle field of A. Hosmer’s by Eddy Bridge.");  See also  May 1, 1859 ("Over Hosmer's meadow, about half covered with water, see hundreds of turtles, chiefly picta, now first lying out in numbers on the brown pieces of meadow which rise above the water. . . .There is to-day a general resurrection of them, and there they bask in the sun. It is their sabbath. ") [ Hosmer Flat Meadow is a Sudbury River meadow just northeast of Clamshell Hill.~ Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts compiled by Ray Angelo]



<<<<< September 1, 1860: ("Cherries are especially birds' food, and . . . I shall think the birds have the best right to them..")

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

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

Coral-root by Brister's Spring

August 20 

August 20, 2018

That large galium still abundant and in blossom, filling crevices. 

The Corallorhiza multiflora, coral-root (not odontorhiza, I think, for it has twenty-four flowers, and its germ is not roundish oval, and its lip is three-lobed), by Brister's Spring. Found by R. W. E., August 12; also Goodyera pubescens found at same date. 

The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass, and the rhexia also, both difficult to get home. 

I find raspberries still. 

An aster with a smooth leaf narrowed below, somewhat like A. amplexicaulis (or patens (Gray) ?). Is it var. phlogifolius? 

Is that smooth, handsome-stemmed goldenrod in Brown's Sleepy Hollow meadow Solidago serotina? 

Bidens, either connata or cernua, by Moore's potato- field.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 20, 1852


The Corallorhiza multiflora, coral-root (not odontorhiza) found by R. W. E., August 12. See August 13, 1852 ("I hear that the Corallorhiza odontorhiza, coral-root, is out.). See also August 29, 1857 ("Nearby, north [of Indian Rock, west of the swamp], is a rocky ridge, on the east slope of which the Corallorhiza multiflora is very abundant.") and  note to August 13, 1857 ("Corallorhiza multiflora . . . how long") [spotted coral-root (Corallorhiza maculate) -- a saprophytic orchid]


Goodyera pubescens found at same date. See August 20, 1857 ("The Goodyera repens grows behind the spring where I used to sit, amid the dead pine leaves") and note to August 27, 1856 (“Goodyera pubescens, rattlesnake-plantain, is apparently a little past its prime. It is very abundant on Clintonia Swamp hillside. . .”)


The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass, and the rhexia also, both difficult to get home. See August 20, 1851("The Rhexia Virginica is a showy flower at present.") See also note to August 5, 1858 ("I cannot sufficiently admire the rhexia, one of the highest-colored purple flowers, but difficult to bring home in its perfection, with its fugacious petals.")


Bidens, either connata or cernua, by Moore's potato- field. See August 30, 1856 ("Bidens connata abundant at Moore's Swamp, how long? ");  September 12, 1851("in Baker's Meadow beyond Pine Hill. . . the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals")September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now, [T]he first two are inconspicuous flowers, cheap and ineffectual, commonly without petals, like the erechthites, but the third and fourth are conspicuous and interesting, expressing by their brilliant yellow the ripeness of the low grounds.");   September 15, 1856 ("What I must call Bidens cernua, like a small chrysanthemoides, is bristly hairy, somewhat connate and apparently regularly toothed"); September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens,or beggar-ticks,or bur-marigold,now abundant by riverside.")

Gathered last night the strong, rank, penetrating-scented angelica.

June 6. 

Friday. 

Gathered last night the strong, rank, penetrating-scented angelica. 

Under the head of the Cicuta maculata, or American hemlock, — “It is a rule sanctioned by the observations of medical botanists , that umbelliferous plants, which grow in or about the water, are of a poisonous nature.” He [Bigelow] does not say that the angelica is poisonous, but I suppose that it is. 

It has such a rank, offensive, and killing odor as makes me think of the ingredients of the witches' cauldron. It did not leave my hands, which had carried it, long after I had washed them. A strong, penetrating, lasting, and sickening odor. 

Gathered to-night the Cicuta maculata, American hemlock, the veins of the leaflets ending in the notches and the root fasciculated.

Bigelow says, “The leaves of the Solidago odora have a delightfully fragrant odor, partaking of that of anise and sassafras, but different from either.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 6, 1851

Gathered last night the strong, rank, penetrating-scented angelica. See July 16, 1851 ("The angelica,with its large umbels, is gone to seed.")

Gathered to-night the Cicuta maculata. See August 30, 1857 ("The flower of Cicuta maculata smells like the leaves of the golden senecio..")

What a change there will be in a few years, this little forest of goldenrod giving place to a forest of pines!

December 17.

P. M. — To Walden.

The snow being some three or four inches deep, I see rising above it, generally, at my old bean-field, only my little white pines set last spring in the midst of an immense field of Solidago nemoralis, with a little sweet-fern (i.e. a large patch of it on the north side).

What a change there will be in a few years, this little forest of goldenrod giving place to a forest of pines!

By the side of the Pout's Nest, I see on the pure white snow what looks like dust for half a dozen inches under a twig. Looking closely, I find that the twig is hardhack and the dust its slender, light-brown, chaffy looking seed, which falls still in copious showers, dusting the snow, when I jar it; and here are the tracks of a sparrow which has jarred the twig and picked the minute seeds a long time, making quite a hole in the snow. The seeds are so fine that it must have got more snow than seed at each peck. But they probably look large to its microscopic eyes.

I see, when I jar it, that a meadow-sweet close by has quite similar, but larger, seeds.

This the reason, then, that these plants rise so high above the snow and retain their seed, dispersing it on the least jar over each successive layer of snow beneath them; or it is carried to a distance by the wind.

What abundance and what variety in the diet of these small granivorous birds, while I find only a few nuts still!

These stiff weeds which no snow can break down hold their provender. What the cereals are to men, these are to the sparrows. The only threshing they require is that the birds fly against their spikes or stalks.

A little further I see the seed-box (?) (Ludwigia) full of still smaller, yellowish seeds.

And on the ridge north is the track of a partridge amid the shrubs. It has hopped up to the low clusters of smooth sumach berries, sprinkled the snow with them, and eaten all but a few. Also, here only, or where it has evidently jarred them down — whether intentionally or not, I am not sure — are the large oval seeds of the stiff-stalked lespedeza, which I suspect it ate, with the sumach berries. There is much solid food in them. When the snow is deep the birds could easily pick the latter out of the heads as they stand on the snow.

I observe, then, eaten by birds to-day, the seed of hardhack and meadow-sweet, sumach, and probably lespedeza, and even seed-box.

Under the hill, on the southeast side of R. W. E.'s lot, where the hemlock stands, I see many tracks of squirrels. The dark, thick green of the hemlock (amid the pines) seems to attract them as a covert. The snow under the hemlock is strewn with the scales of its cones, which they (and perhaps birds?) have stripped off, and some of its little winged seeds. It is pleasant to see the tracks of these squirrels (I am not sure whether they are red or gray or both, for I see none) leading straight from the base of one tree to that of another, thus leaving untrodden triangles, squares, and polygons of every form, bounded by much trodden highways.

One, two, three, and the track is lost on the upright bole of a pine, — as if they had played at base-running from goal to goal, while pine cones were thrown at them on the way. The tracks of two or three suggest a multitude. You come thus on the tracks of these frisky and volatile (semivolitant) creatures in the midst of perfect stillness and solitude, as you might stand in a hall half an hour after the dancers had departed.

I see no nests in the trees, but numerous holes through the snow into the earth, whence they have emerged. They have loitered but little on the snow, spending their time chiefly on the trees, their castles, when abroad.

The snow is strewn not only with hemlock scales, but, under other trees, with the large white pine scales for rods together where there is no track, the wind having scattered them as they fell, and also the shells of hickory-nuts. It reminds me of the platform before a grocery where nuts are sold.

You see many places where they have probed the snow for these white pine cones, evidently those which they cut off green and which accordingly have not opened so as to drop the seeds. This was perhaps the design in cut ting them off so early, — thus to preserve them under the snow (not dispersed). Do they find them by the scent?

At any rate they will dig down through the snow and come right upon a pine cone or a hickory-nut or an acorn, which you and I cannot do.

Two or three acres of Walden, off the bar, not yet frozen.

Saw in [it] a good-sized black duck, which did not dive while I looked. I suspect it must have been a Fuligula, though I saw no white.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 17, 1859

What abundance and what variety in the diet of these small granivorous birds. These stiff weeds which no snow can break down hold their provender.  See January 16, 1860 ("Though you may have never noticed this shrub, the tree sparrow comes from the north in the winter straight to it, and confidently shakes its panicle, and then feasts on the fine shower of seed that falls from it. The bird understands how to get its dinner perfectly.")

Two or three acres of Walden, off the bar, not yet frozen. Saw in it a good-sized black duck. See December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. . . . A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up.")

Solidago bicolor, white goldenrod, apparently in good season

August 12

Solidago bicolor
August 31, 2019

Walked to Walden and Fair Haven Hill with Mrs. Wilson and son, of Cincinnati. 

They tell me that the only men of thought in that part of the world are one young Goddard and Stallo the German. The subjects that engage the mass are theological dogmas and European politics. The man of the West is not yet. 

Solidago bicolor, white goldenrod, apparently in good season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 12, 1852

Solidago bicolor, white goldenrod, apparently in good season. See   August 21, 1856 ("The bicolor, just begun in some places. ");  September 1, 1856 (".S. bicolor, not quite in prime, but common ; September 21, 1856 ("[On top of Cliff, behind the big stump]  is a great place for white goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees.");  October 2, 1856 ("Solidago bicolor considerably past prime"); Octpber 8, 1856 ("S. bicolor in some places, are common still");   October 11, 1856 ("The white goldenrod is still common here, and covered with bees.")

The drought ceases with the dog-days.

July 27. 

8 a. m. — Rains, still quite soakingly. 

June and July perhaps only are the months of drought. The drought ceases with the dog-days. 

P. M. — To White Pond in rain. 

The autumnal dandelion now appears more abundantly within a week. 

Solidago lanceolata also, a few days probably, though only partially open.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1853

The drought ceases with the dog-days. See July 24, 1854 ("A decided rain-storm to-day and yesterday, such as we have not had certainly since May."); July 31, 1855 ("Our dog-days seem to be turned to a rainy season"); August 15, 1858 ("It is the season of mould and mildew, and foggy, muggy, often rainy weather.")

The autumnal dandelion now appears more abundantly within a week. See August 4. 1854 ("The autumnal dandelion is now more common.");  September 13, 1856 ("Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill")

A strong west wind, saving us from intolerable heat, accompanied by a blue haze, making the mountains invisible.

July 22. 

This morning, though perfectly fair except a haziness in the east, which prevented any splendor, the birds do not sing as yesterday. They appear to make distinctions which we cannot appreciate, and perhaps sing with most animation on the finest mornings. 

1 p. m. — Lee's Bridge, via Conantum; return by Clematis Brook. 

There men in the fields are at work thus indefatigably, more or less honestly getting bread for men. The writer should be employed with at least equal industry to an analogous though higher end.

Flocks of yellow-breasted, russet-backed female bobolinks are seen flitting stragglingly across the meadows. The bobolink loses his song as he loses his colors. 

Tansy is now conspicuous by the roadsides, covered with small red butterflies. It is not an uninteresting plant. I probably put it down a little too early. 

Is that a slender bellflower with entire leaves by the Corner road? 

The green berries of the arum are seen, and the now reddish fruit of the trillium, and the round green-pea-sized green berries of the axil-flowering Solomon's-seal. 

Farmers have commenced their meadow-haying. 

The Aster macrophyllus, large-leafed, in Miles's Swamp. 

Is not that the Lysimachia ciliata, or hairy-stalked loosestrife, by the Corner road, not the lanceolata? Eupatorium sessilifolium now whitish. 

A strong west wind, saving us from intolerable heat, accompanied by a blue haze, making the mountains invisible. We have more of the furnace-like heat to-day, after all. 

The Rhus glabra flowers are covered with bees, large yellowish wasps, and butterflies; they are all alive with them. How much account insects make of some flowers! There are other botanists than I. 

The Asclepias syriaca is going to seed. Here is a kingfisher frequenting the Corner Brook Pond. They find out such places. 

Huckleberrying and blackberrying have commenced. 

The round-leafed sundew. Monotropa uniflora, Indian- pipe. 

Solidago Canadensis (?) almost out.

Either a smooth Polygonum hydropiperoides or a white P. amphibium var. terrestre. 

The spear thistle. [Cirsium lanceolatum.]

Galium circcezans, wild liquorice, in Baker Farm Swamp. 

What is that minute whitish flower with an upright thread-like stem and thread-like linear leaves, with a kind of interrupted spike or raceme of small, whitish, erect, bell-like flowers, the corolla divided by a stout partition, from which projects the style, with three distinct segments in the edge of the bell each side of the partition? [Canada snapdragon.] 

Also found a very small narrow-leaved whitish aster (?).[Erigeron Canadensis.]

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

Flocks of yellow-breasted, russet-backed female bobolinks are seen flitting stragglingly across the meadows 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. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Bobolink

The green berries of the arum are seen. See 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 ")

The now reddish fruit of the trillium. See August 19, 1852 ("The trillium berries, six-sided, one inch in diameter, like varnished and stained cherry wood, glossy red, crystalline and ingrained, concealed under its green leaves in shady swamps. ")

The Aster macrophyllus, large-leafed, in Miles's Swamp. See August 9, 1856 ("The flowers of A. macrophyllus are white with a very slight bluish tinge, in a coarse flat-topped corymb. Flowers nine to ten eighths of an inch in diameter."); August 26, 1856 ("Aster macrophyllus, now in its prime. It grows large and rank, two feet high. On one I count seventeen central flowers withered, one hundred and thirty in bloom, and half as many buds.")

July 22. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 22

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

I go looking for green radical leaves while the storm blows overhead, and I forget how the time is passing.

March 8. 

March 8, 2019

A rainy day. P. M. — To Hill in rain.

To us snow and cold seem a mere delaying of the spring. How far we are from understanding the value of these things in the economy of Nature! The earth is still mostly covered with ice and snow. 

As usual, I notice large pools of greenish water in the fields, on an icy bottom, which cannot owe their greenness to the reflected blue mingled with the yellowish light at sundown, as I supposed in the case of the green ice and water in clear winter days, for I see the former now at midday and in a rain-storm, when no sky is visible. I think that these green pools over an icy bottom must be produced by the yellow or common earth stain in the water mingling with the blue which is reflected from the ice. Many pools have so large a proportion of this yellow tinge as not to look green but yellow. The stain, the tea, of withered vegetation — grass and leaves — and of the soil supplies the yellow tint. 

But perhaps those patches of emerald sky, sky just tinged with green, which we sometimes see, far in the horizon or near it, are produced in the same way as I thought the green ice was, — some yellow glow reflected from a cloud mingled with the blue of the atmosphere. One might say that the yellow of the earth mingled with the blue of the sky to make the green of vegetation.

I see, under the pitch pines on the southwest slope of the hill, the reddish bud-scales scattered on the snow which fell on the 4th, and also settled an inch into it, and, examining, I find that in a great many cases the buds have been eaten by some creature and the scales scattered about, or, being opened, have closed over a cavity. 

Many scales rest amid the needles. 

There is no track on the snow, which is soft, but the scales must have been dropped within a day or two. I see near one pine, however, the fresh track of a partridge and where one has squatted all night. Tracks might possibly have been obliterated by the rapid melting of the snow the last day or two. 

Yet I am inclined to think that these were eaten by the red squirrel; or was it the crossbill? for this is said to visit us in the winter. Have I ever seen a squirrel eat the pine buds?

There is a fine freezing rain with strong wind from the north; so I keep along under shelter of hills and woods, along their south sides, in my india-rubber coat and boots. 

Under the south edge of Woodis Park, in the low ground, I see many radical leaves of the Solidago altissima and another — I am pretty sure it is the S. stricta — and occasionally also of the Aster imdulatus, and all are more or less lake beneath. The first, at least, have when bruised a strong scent. Some of them have recently grown decidedly. 

So at least several kinds of goldenrods and asters have radical leaves lake-colored at this season. 

The common strawberry leaves, too, are quite fresh and a handsome lake- color beneath in many cases. 

There are also many little rosettes of the radical leaves of the Epilobium coloratum, half brown and withered, with bright-green centres, at least. And even the under side of some mullein leaves is lake or crimson also. 

There is but a narrow strip of bare ground reaching a few rods into the wood along the south edge, but the less ground there is bare, the more we make of it. 



Such a day as this, I resort where the partridges, etc., do — to the bare ground and the sheltered sides of woods and hills — and there explore the moist ground for the radical leaves of plants, while the storm blows overhead, and I forget how the time is passing. If the weather is thick and stormy enough, if there is a good chance to be cold and wet and uncomfortable, in other words to feel weather-beaten, you may consume the afternoon to advantage thus browsing along the edge of some near wood which would scarcely detain you at all in fair weather, and you will be as far away there as at the end of your longest fair-weather walk, and come home as if from an adventure. 

There is no better fence to put between you and the village than a storm into which the villagers do not venture out. 

I go looking for green radical leaves.

What a dim and shadowy existence have now to our memories the fair flowers whose localities they mark! How hard to find any trace of the stem now, after it has been flattened under the snows of the winter! I go feeling with wet and freezing fingers amid the withered grass and the snow for these prostrate stems, that I may reconstruct the plant. 

But greenness so absorbs our attention that sometimes I do not see the former rising from the midst of those radical leaves when it almost puts my eyes out.

The shepherd's-purse radical leaves are particularly bright. 

I see there a dead white pine, some twenty-five feet high, which has been almost entirely stripped of its bark by the woodpeckers. 

Where any bark is left, the space between it and the wood is commonly closely packed with the gnawings of worms, which appear to have consumed the inner bark. But where the bark is gone, the wood also is eaten to some depth, and there are numerous holes penetrating deep into the wood. 

Over all this portion, which is almost all the tree, the woodpeckers have knocked off the bark and enlarged the holes in pursuit of the worms.

The fine rain with a strong north wind is now forming a glaze on my coat. When I get home the thermometer is at 29°. So a glaze seems to be formed when a fine rain is falling with the thermometer very little below the freezing-point.

Men of science, when they pause to contemplate "the power, wisdom, and goodness" of God, or, as they sometimes call him, "the Almighty Designer," speak of him as a total stranger whom it is necessary to treat with the highest consideration. They seem suddenly to have lost their wits.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 8, 1859


I see near one pine, however, the fresh track of a partridge and where one has squatted all night. See March 8, 1857  ("A partridge goes off from amid the pitch pines.")

Such a day as this, I explore the moist ground for the radical leaves of plants, while the storm blows overhead, and I forget how the time is passing. See February, 5, 1852 ("Time never passes so rapidly and unaccountably as when I am engaged in recording my thoughts. The world may perchance reach its end for us in a profounder thought, and Time itself run down.”); January 27, 1858 ("Time never passes so quickly and unaccountably, as when I am engaged in composition, i. e. in writing down my thoughts. Clocks seem to have been put forward."); see April 29, 1852 (“The art of life, of a poet's life, is, not having anything to do, to do something.”)

If there is a good chance to be cold and wet and uncomfortable, in other words to feel weather-beaten, you may consume the afternoon to advantage. See December 25, 1856 ("Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary."); February 28, 1852 (“To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin, . . . and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten, - so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men.”)

The shepherd's-purse radical leaves are particularly bright. See January 23, 1855 ("The radical leaves of the shepherd’s-purse, seen in green circles on the water-washed plowed grounds, remind me of the internal heat and life of the globe, anon to burst forth anew")

Men of science speak of him as a total stranger whom it is necessary to treat with the highest consideration. They seem suddenly to have lost their wits. See March 5, 1852 ("It is encouraging to know that, though every kernel of truth has been carefully swept out of our churches, there yet remains the dust of truth on their walls, so that if you should carry a light into them they would still, like some powder-mills, blow up at once.")

The best fence between

you and the village – a storm

they will not venture.

November Lights: The dark-eyed junco flits amid the falling leaves with its sharp twitter.

October 25. 

P. M. — To the Beeches. 

October 25, 2023

I look at the willows by the causeway, east side, as I go, — Salix discolor, Torreyana, rostrata, and lucida are all almost quite bare, and the remaining leaves are yellow or yellowish. Those of the last the clearest and most conspicuous yellow. S. pedicellaris is merely yellowish, being rather green and not fallen. The S. alba at a distance looks very silvery in the light.

Now that the leaves are fallen (for a few days), the long yellow buds (often red-pointed) which sleep along the twigs of the S. discolor are very conspicuous and quite interesting, already even carrying our thoughts for ward to spring. I noticed them first on the 22d. They may be put with the azalea buds already noticed. Even bleak and barren November wears these gems on her breast in sign of the coming year. How many thoughts lie undeveloped, and as it were dormant, like these buds, in the minds of men!

This is the coolest day thus far, reminding me that I have only a half-thick coat on. The easterly wind comes cold into my ear, as yet unused to it. Yet this first decided coolness - not to say wintriness — is not only bracing but exhilarating and concentrating [to] our forces. So much the more I have a hearth and heart within me. We step more briskly, and brace ourselves against the winter. 

I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. 

Near the end of the causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting. This is much fairer than the thistle-down. It apparently bursts its pods after rain especially (as yesterday’s), opening on the under side, away from succeeding rains. Half a dozen seeds or more, attached by the tips of their silks to the core of the pod, will be blown about there a long time before a strong puff launches them away, and in the meanwhile they are expanding and drying their silk. 

In the cut the F. hyemalis, which has been here for a month, flits away with its sharp twitter amid the falling leaves. This is a fall sound. 

At the pond the black birches are bare; how long? 

Now, as you walk in woods, the leaves rustle under your feet as much as ever. In some places you walk pushing a mass before you. In others they half cover pools that are three rods long. They make it slippery climbing hills. 

Now, too, for the different shades of brown, especially in sprout-lands. I see [three] kinds of oaks now, — the whitish brown of the white oak, the yellowish brown of the black oak, and the red or purplish brown [of the scarlet oak]  (if it can be called brown at all, for it is not faded to brown yet and looks full of life though really withered (i. e. the shrubs) for the most part, excepting here and there leading shoots or spring twigs, which glow as bright a scarlet as ever). There is no red here, but perhaps that may be called a lighter, yellowish brown, and so distinguished from the black in color. It has more life in it now than the white and black, not withered so much. These browns are very pure and wholesome colors, far from spot and decay, and their rustling leaves call the roll for a winter campaign. How different now the rustling of these sere leaves from the soft, fluttering murmur of the same when alive! This sharp rustle warns all to go home now who are not prepared for a winter campaign.

The scarlet oak shrubs are as distinct amid the other species as before they had withered, and it is remarkable how evenly they are distributed over the hills, by some law not quite understood. Nature ever plots against Baker and Stow, Moore and Hosmer. 

The black scrub oak, seen side by side with the white, is yet lighter than that. 

How should we do without this variety of oak leaves, — the forms and colors? On many sides, the eye requires such variety (seemingly infinite) to rest on. 

Chestnut trees are generally bare, showing only a thin crescent of burs, for they are very small this year. I climb one on Pine Hill, looking over Flint’s Pond, which, indeed, I see from the ground. These young chestnuts growing in clumps from a stump are hard to climb, having few limbs below, far apart, and they dead and rotten. 

The brightest tint of the black oaks that I remember was some yellow gleams from half green and brownish leaves; i. e., the tops of the large trees have this yellowish and green look. It is a mellow yellow enough, without any red. The brightest of the red oaks were a pretty delicate scarlet, inclining to a brownish yellow, the effect enhanced by the great size of the leaf. 

When, on the 22d, I was looking from the Cliffs on the shrub oak plain, etc., calling some of the brightest tints flame-like, I saw the flames of a burning — for we see their smokes of late—two or three miles distant in Lincoln rise above the red shrubbery, and saw how in intensity and brilliancy the real flame distanced all colors, even by day.

Now, especially, we notice not only the silvery leaves of the Salix alba but the silvery sheen of pine-needles; i. e., when its old leaves have fallen and trees generally are mostly bare, in the cool Novemberish air and light we observe and enjoy the trembling shimmer and gleam of the pine-needles. 

I do not know why we perceive this more at this season, unless because the air is so clear and all surfaces reflect more light; and, besides, all the needles now left are fresh ones, or the growth of this year. Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light. 

In November consider the sharp, dry rustle of withered leaves; the cool, silvery, and shimmering gleams of light, as above; the fresh bright buds formed and exposed along the twigs; walnuts. 

The leaves of the Populus grandidentata, though half fallen and turned a pure and handsome yellow, are still wagging as fast as ever. These do not lose their color and wither on the tree like oaks and beeches and some of their allies, and hickories, too, and button wood, neither do maples, nor birches quite, nor willows (except the Salix tristis and perhaps some of the next allied), — but they are fresh and unwilted, full of sap and fair as ever when they are first strewn on the ground. I do not think of any tree whose leaves are so fresh and fair when they fall.

The beech has just fairly turned brown of different shades, but not yet crisped or quite withered. Only the young in the shade of the woods are yet green and yellow. Half the leaves of the last are a light yellow with a green midrib, and are quite light and bright seen through the woods. The lower parts, too, of the large tree are yellow yet. I should put this tree, then, either with the main body of the oaks or between them and the scarlet oak. I have not seen enough to judge of their beauty. 

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. The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides. The Viburnum dentatum leaves, which are rather thin now, are drooping like the Cornus sericea (although fresh), and are mixed purplish and light green.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  October 25, 1858

I look at the willows by the causeway, -- all almost quite bare. See October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.")

The long yellow buds (often red-pointed) which sleep along the twigs of the S. discolor are very conspicuous and quite interesting. See October 18, 1859 (The long, curved, yellowish buds of the Salix discolor begin to show, the leaves falling; even the down has peeped out from under some."); October 24, 1860 ("I see those narrow pointed yellow buds now laid bare so thickly along the slender twigs of the Salix discolor, which is almost bare of leaves.")

Near the end of the causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting. See October 19, 1856 ("The Asclepias Cornuti pods are now apparently in the midst of discounting."); September 21, 1856 ("Asclepias Cornuti discounting.")

In the cut the F. hyemalis, which has been here for a month, flits away with its sharp twitter amid the falling leaves. This is a fall sound.  See October 22, 1859 ("F. hyemalis quite common for a week past."); October 26, 1857 ("each uttering a faint chip from time to time, as if to keep together, bewildering you so that you know not if the greater part are gone by or still to come. One rests but a moment on the tree before you and is gone again. You wonder if they know whither they are bound, and how their leader is appointed.") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

The leaves rustle under your feet as much as ever. In some places you walk pushing a mass before you. See  October 10, 1851 ("You make a great noise now walking in the woods."); October 20, 1853 ("How pleasant to walk over beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling fallen leaves!")  October 22, 1854 ('Now they rustle as you walk through them in the woods."); October 22, 1857 ("As I go through the woods now, so many oak and other leaves have fallen the rustling noise somewhat disturbs my musing. "); October 28, 1852 ("I hear no sound but the rustling of the withered leaves, and, on the wooded hilltops, the roar of the wind.”); October 28, 1860 ("We make a great noise going through the fallen leaves in the woods and wood-paths now, so that we cannot hear other sounds. ”)

Another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light. See October 16, 1859 ("This clear, cold, Novemberish light is inspiriting. Some twigs which are bare and weeds begin to glitter with hoary light. The very edge or outline of a tawny or russet hill has this hoary fight on it. Your thoughts sparkle like the water surface and the downy twigs."); November 28, 1856 ("At 3.30 p. m., the sunlight reflected from the many ascending twigs of bare young chestnuts and birches, very dense and ascendant with a marked parallelism, they remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season, being almost exactly similar to the eye. It is a true November phenomenon.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

The scarlet oak shrubs are as distinct amid the other species . . . distributed over the hills, by some law not quite understood. See October 31, 1858 ("There is brought out a more brilliant redness in the scarlet oaks, scattered so equally over the forest, than you would have believed was in them. Every tree of this species which is visible in these directions, even to the horizon, now stands out distinctly red."); November 1, 1858 ("If you wish to count the scarlet oaks. do it now. Stand on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high and the sky is clear, and every one within range of your vision will be revealed." )See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Scarlet Oak

Cool silvery light

like the gleam from gossamer

reflects from bare twigs 

The trembling shimmer 

and gleam of the pine-needles –

these November lights.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Lights

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/HDT581025

Bleached and faded corn stands quite white in the twilight.

October 6. 

October 6, 2018

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook and Flint’s Pond. 

Now, methinks, the autumnal tints are brightest in our streets and in the woods generally. 

In the streets, the young sugar maples make the most show. The street is never more splendid. As I look up the street from the Mill-Dam, they look like painted screens standing before the houses to celebrate a gala-day. One half of each tree glows with a delicate scarlet. 

But only one of the large maples on the Common is yet on fire. The butternuts on the street are with, or a little later than, the walnuts. The three-thorned acacias have turned (one half) a peculiarly clear bright and delicate yellow, peculiar also for the smallness of the leaf. 

Asparagus-beds are a soft mass of yellow and green. Buttonwoods have no bright colors, but are a brownish and yellowish green, some what curled and crisp and looking the worse for the wear. 

Stand where half a dozen large elms droop over a house. It is as if you stood within a ripe pumpkin rind, and you feel as mellow as if you were the pulp.

In Saw Mill Brook Path, and in most wood-paths, 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. 

The Rhus Toxicodendron leaves are completely changed and of very various colors, pale yellow to deep scarlet and delicate. The leaf-stalks are commonly drooping, being bent short downward near the base in a peculiar manner. 

Several species of ferns are faded quite white in the swamp, — dicksonia and another, and some brakes, — for in moist woods and swamps they are preserved longer than in dry places. 

Solidago latifolia in bloom still, but always sparingly. 

Cinnamon ferns are generally crisped, but in the swamp I saw some handsomely spotted green and yellowish, and one clump, the handsomest I ever saw, perfect in outline, falling over each way from the centre, of a very neat drab color, quaker-like, fit to adorn an Oriental drawing-room. 

The evergreens seem positively greener, owing to the browning of other leaves. 

I should not suspect that the white birches had changed so much and lost so many leaves, if I did not see them against the unchanged pitch pines on the hillside. 

I notice Hieracium paniculatum and scabrum in dark, low wood-paths, turned a hoary white. 

The medeola leaves are a pale straw-color with a crimson centre; perhaps getting stale now. 

The tupelo at Wharf Rock is completely scarlet, with blue berries amid its leaves. 

Leaves now have fairly begun to rustle under foot in wood-paths, especially in chestnut woods, scaring the ducks as you approach the ponds. And what is that common scent there so much like fragrant everlasting? 

The smooth sumachs, which are in their prime, or perhaps a little past, are, methinks, the most uniform and intense scarlet of any shrub or tree. They stand perfectly distinct amid the pines, with slender spreading arms, their leafets drooping and somewhat curled though fresh. Yet, high-colored as they are, from their attitude and drooping, like scarfs, on rather bare and dark stems, they have a funereal effect, as if you were walking in the cemetery of a people who mourned in scarlet. 

Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost. 

The corn stands bleached and faded — quite white in the twilight — in the fields. No greenness there has the frost and sun left. Seen against the dark earth. 

My phosphorescent wood still glows a little, though it has lain on my stove all day, and, being wet, it is much improved still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 6, 1858

Autumnal tints are brightest in our streets and in the woods generally. See October 6, 1857 (“We are not prepared to believe that the earth is now so parti-colored, and would present to a bird's eye such distinct masses of bright color. A great painter is at work.”); October 23, 1857 ("I can find no bright leaves now in the woods.")

The Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. See September 20, 1852 ("Aster undulatus, or variable aster, with a large head of middle-sized blue flowers."); October 2, 1859 ("The A. undulatus looks fairer than ever, now that flowers are more scarce."); October 4, 1853 ("Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus"); October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides."); November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom");November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet.") 
 

Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost. See October 3, 1857 ("Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now.") Compare  October 3, 1852 ("The Aster undulates is common and fresh, also the Solidago nemoralis of Gray.”)

Cinnamon ferns are generally crisped, but in the swamp I saw some handsomely spotted green and yellowish. See  October 2, 1859 ("I perceive in various places, in low ground, this afternoon, the sour scent of cinnamon ferns decaying. It is an agreeable phenomenon, reminding me of the season and of past years.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

Where half a dozen large elms droop over a houseit is as if you stood within a ripe pumpkin rind. See October 9, 1857 ("As I look down our street, which is lined with them, now clothed in their very rich brownish-yellow dress, they remind me of yellowing sheaves of grain, as if the harvest had come to the village itself”)

The medeola leaves are a pale straw-color with a crimson centre; perhaps getting stale now.. See May 25, 1852 ("Medeola or cucumber-root in bud, with its two-storied whorl of leaves. "); July 24, 1853 ("The medeola is still in flower, though with large green berries"); August 27, 1851 ("The Medeola Virginica, cucumber-root, the whorl-leaved plant, is now in green fruit"); 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.");October 14, 1859 (" Medeola probably fallen several weeks.")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Cucumber Root (medeola)

The tupelo at Wharf Rock is completely scarlet, with blue berries amid its leaves. See August 31, 1857 ("At Flint's Pond I wade along the edge eight or ten rods to the wharf rock, carrying my shoes and stockings"); September 11, 1859 ("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."); September 30, 1854 ("I find a fine tupelo near Sam Barrett’s now all turned scarlet. I find that it has borne much fruit — small oval bluish berries,"); October 19, 1859 ("The tupelo berries have all fallen") [Nyssa sylvatica, commonly known as the Black Tupelo, is a medium-sized deciduous tree native to eastern North America, from New England and southern Ontario south to central Florida and eastern Texas. ~ iNaturalist]

Leaves now have fairly begun to rustle under foot in wood-paths, scaring the ducks as you approach the ponds. See October 10, 1851 ("You make a great noise now walking in the woods.”); October 22, 1857 (“As I go through the woods now, so many oak and other leaves have fallen the rustling noise somewhat disturbs my musing. However, Nature in this may have intended some kindness to the ducks, which are now loitering hereabouts on their migration south ward, mostly young and inexperienced birds, for, as they are feeding [in] Goose Pond, for instance, the rustling of the leaves betrays the approach of the sports man and his dog, or other foe; so perhaps the leaves on the ground protect them more than when on the trees. ”); and note to October 22, 1854 ("Now they rustle as you walk through them in the woods.”)

I notice Hieracium paniculatum and scabrum in dark, low wood-paths, turned a hoary white. See August 6, 1856 ("Hieracium scabrous.”) See July 21, 1851 ("The rough hawkweed, too, resembling in its flower the autumnal dandelion.”); August21, 1851 ("Hieracium paniculatum, a very delicate and slender hawkweed. I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.”)

The corn stands bleached and faded — quite white in the twilight . . . seen against the dark earth. See October 1, 1851 ("I go through Wheeler's corn-field in the twilight, where the stalks are bleached almost white, and his tops are still stacked along the edge of the field. The moon is not far up above the southwestern horizon. Looking west at this hour, the earth is an unvaried, undistinguishable black in contrast with the twilight sky. It is as if you were walking in night up to your chin.") See also September 17, 1852 ("The corn-stalks are stacked like muskets along the fields."); October 8, 1858 ("Fine pasture grass seen in the sun, begins to.look faded and bleached like the corn."); October 10, 1857 ("See the heaps of apples in the fields and at the cider mill, of pumpkins in the fields, and the stacks of cornstalks and the standing corn."); October 12, 1858 ("The coarse grass of the riverside . . . is bleached as white as corn."); October 28, 1853 ("Just saw in the garden, in the drizzling rain, little sparrow-sized birds flitting about amid the dry corn stalks and the weeds.")

My phosphorescent wood.  See October 4, 1858 ("I saw on the sidewalk something bright like fire.");
October 5, 1858 ("My phosphorescent wood of last night still glows somewhat, but I improve it much by putting it in water. The little chips which remain in the water or sink to the bottom are like so many stars in the sky.")

October 6. See  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, October 6

Medeola leaves 

 are a pale straw-color with 

a crimson centre;

Bleached and faded corn

stands quite white in the twilight

against the dark earth.

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

 Bleached and faded corn stands quite white in the twilight.

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-581006