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.")

It is a sacrament, a communion. The not-forbidden fruits, which no serpent tempts us to taste

July 24.

Sunday. 4.30 A. M. – By boat to Island.

Robins, larks, peawais, etc., as in the spring, at this hour.

The mikania to-morrow or next day.

The zizania, some days.

The low, front-rank polygonums are still imbrowned in many places; as I think, have not recovered from the effect of late frosts.

Mr. Pratt asked me to what animal a spine and broken skull found in the wall of James Adams’s shop belonged, — within the partition.

I found by its having but two kinds of teeth, and they incisive and molar, that it belonged to the order Rodentia, which, with us, consists of the Beaver, Hare, Rat ( including squirrels ), and Porcupine families.

From its having “ incisors 3, molars 3 ” and “ molars with a flat crown and zigzag plates of enamel, ” I knew it to be a muskrat, which probably got into the building at a time of high water.

The molars appeared like one long tooth, their flat, smooth tops zigzagged with the edges of hard plates of 1 in this and some but after looking long and sharply with a microscope, though on the side I could not distinguish the separate teeth, I made out, by tracing about the edges of the enamel which intertwined and m broke joints curiously for strength, three separate inclosures, and, with full faith in this and in science, I told Pratt it was a muskrat, and gave him my proofs; but he could not distinguish the three molars even with a glass, or was still plainly uncertain, for he had thought them one tooth, when, taking his pincers, he pulled one out and was convinced, much to his and to my satisfaction and our confidence in science ! How very hard must be the teeth of this animal whose food is clams!

What keeps his incisors so sharp?

Look at this strong head, with its upper jaw and incisor curved somewhat like a turtle’s beak.

What an apparatus for cutting, holding, crushing ! What a trap to be caught in ! It is amusing to think what grists have come to this mill, though now the upper and nether stones fall loosely apart, and the brain-chamber above, where the miller lodged, is now empty ( passing under the portcullis of the incisors ), and the windows are gone. 

With or without reason, I find myself associating with the idea of summer a certain cellar-like coolness, resulting from the depth of shadows and the luxuriance of foliage.

I think that after this date the crops never suffer so severely from drought as in June, because of their foliage shading the ground and producing dews.

We had fog this morning, and no doubt often the last three weeks, which my surveying has prevented my getting up to see.

It is the palmer-worm which has attacked the apple trees this year.

Surveying one very hot day, a week or two ago, and having occasion to strip a sapling of its bark, I was surprised to observe how cool the freshly exposed and sappy wood was, as if it extracted coolness from the cool cellars of the earth.

Sophia's Viola pedata, taken up in the spring, blossomed again a day or two ago. 

I perceive the peculiar scent of corn-fields.

Yesterday a dew-like, gentle summer rain.

You scarcely know if you are getting wet.

At least two kinds of grass as tall as the zizania have preceded it along the river.

One has long since gone to seed, and looks flavid or yellowish now.

The other is still in blossom, its chaff ( ? ) being remarkably and regularly on one side of the glume (?). 

For a week or more I have perceived that the evenings were considerably longer and of some account to sit down and write in.


Ate an early-harvest apple of my own raising yesterday; not quite ripe.

The scent of some very early ones which I have passed in my walks, imparting some ripeness to the year, has excited me somewhat.

It affects me like a performance, a poem, a thing done; and all the year is not a mere promise of Nature’s.

How far behind the spring seems now, — farther off, perhaps, than ever, for this heat and dryness is most opposed to spring.

Where most I sought for flowers in April and May I do not think to go now; it is either drought and barrenness or fall there now.

The reign of moisture is long since over.

For a long time the year feels the influence of the snows of winter and the long rains of spring, but now how changed! It is like another and a fabulous age to look back on, when earth’s veins were full of moisture, and violets burst out on every hillside. 

Spring is the reign of water; summer, of heat and dryness; winter, of cold. 

Whole families of plants that lately flourished have disappeared.

Now the phenomena are tropical.

Let our summer last long enough, and our land would wear the aspect of the tropics.

The luxuriant foliage and growth of all kinds shades the earth and is con verting every copse into a jungle.

Vegetation is rampant.

There is not such rapid growth, it is true, but it slumbers like a serpent that has swallowed its prey.

Summer is one long drought.

Rain is the exception.

All the signs of it fail, for it is dry weather.

Though’it may seem so, the current year is not peculiar in this respect.

It is a slight labor to keep count of all the showers, the rainy days, of a summer.

You may keep it on your thumb nail.



P. M.--To Corner Spring and Fair Haven Hill.

Mimulus ringens at Heywood Brook, probably several days.

The fruit of the skunk-cabbage is turned black.

At Hubbard’s Bathing-Place I tread on clams all across the river in mid-channel, flattening them down, for they are on their edges.

The small linear leaved hypericum (H. Canadense) shows red capsules.

The black choke-berry, probably some days.

The dark indigo-blue (Sophia says), waxy, and like blue china blue berries of the clintonia are already well ripe. For some time, then, though a few are yet green.  They are numerous near the edge of Hubbard’s lower meadow. They are in clusters of half a dozen on brittle stems eight or ten inches high, oblong or squarish round, the size of large peas with a dimple atop.

Seen thus, above the handsome, regular green leaves which are still perfect in form and color and which, here growing close together, checker the ground, and also in the dense shade of the copse, there is something peculiarly celestial about them. This is the plant’s true flower, for which it has preserved its leaves fresh and unstained so long.

Eupatorium pubescens at Hubbard’s burnt meadow.

There is much near his grove.

Also Epilobium molle there (put it with the coloratum), and coloratum and the common still in blossom.

There is erechthites there, budded.

Also Lysimachia ciliata and, by the causeway near, the ovate-leaved, quite distinct from the lanceolate, — I think not so early as the last.

At the Corner Spring the berries of the trillium are already pink.

The medeola is still in flower, though with large green berries.

The swamp-pink still blooms and the morning-glory is quite fresh; it is a pure white, like a lady’s morning gown.

The aspect of vegetation about the spring reminds me of fall.

The angelica, skunk-cabbage, trillium, arum, and the lodged and flattened grass are all phenomena of the fall.

A spikenard just beyond the spring has already pretty large green berries, though a few flowers. Say July 10th.

It is a great plant, six feet high, seven long, with the largest pinnate leaves of this kind I think of. More than two feet by two, with single leafets eleven inches by nine.

The two-leaved convallaria and the Smilacina racemosa show ripening clusters.

I hear incessantly a cricket or locust, inspired by the damp, cool shade, telling of autumn.

I have not observed it more than a week.

Scutellaria galericulata, maybe some time.

The berries of the Vaccinium vacillans are very abundant and large this year on Fair Haven, where I am now.

Indeed these and huckleberries and blackberries are very abundant in this part of the town.

Nature does her best to feed man.

The traveller need not go out of the road to get as many as he wants; every bush and vine teems with palatable fruit.

Man for once stands in such relation to Nature as the animals that pluck and eat as they go.

The fields and bills are a table constantly spread.

Wines of all kinds and qualiities, of noblest vintage, are bottled up in the skins of countless berries, for the taste of men and animals.

To men they seem offered not so much for food as for sociality, that they may picnic with Nature, — diet drinks, cordials, wines.

We pluck and eat in remembrance of Her.

It is a sacrament, a communion.

The not-forbidden fruits, which no serpent tempts us to taste.

Slight and innocent savors, which relate us to Nature, make us her guests and entitle us to her regard and protection.

It is a Saturnalia, and we quaff her wines at every turn.

This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries, and women and children who never visit distant hills and fields and swamps on any other errand are seen making baste thither now, with half their domestic utensils in their hands.

The woodchopper goes into the swamp for fuel in the winter; his wife and children for berries in the summer.

The late rose, — R. Carolina, swamp rose, – I think has larger and longer leaves; at any rate they are duller above (light beneath), and the bushes higher.

The shaggy hazelnuts now greet the eye, always an agreeable sight to me, with which when a boy I used to take the stains of berries out of my hands and mouth.

These and green grapes are found at berry time.

High blueberries, when thick and large, bending the twigs, are a very handsome cool, rich, acid berry.

On Fair Haven a quarter of an hour before sunset.

— How fortunate and glorious that our world is not roofed in, but open like a Roman house, — our skylight so broad and open! We do not climb the hills in vain.

It is no crystal palace we dwell in.

The windows of the sky are always open, and the storms blow in at them.

The field sparrow sings with that varied strain.

The night wind rises.

On the eastern side of this hill it is already twilight.

The air is cooler and clearer.

The mountains which were almost invisible grow more distinct.

The various heights of our hills are plainly shown by the more or less of the mountain bases seen * from them.

The atmosphere of the western horizon is impurpled, tingeing the mountains.

A golden sheen is reflected from the river so brightly that it dazzles me as much as the sun.

The now silver-plated river is burnished gold there, and in midst of all I see a boat ascending with regular dip of its seemingly gilt oars.

That which appears a strip of smooth, light silvery water on each side of the stream, not reflecting the sky, is the reflection of light from the pads.

From their edges, there stream into the smooth channel sharp blue serrations or ripples of various lengths, sometimes nearly across, where seemingly a zephyr gliding off the pads strikes it.

A boy is looking after his cows, calling “ker ker ker ker,” impatient to go home.

The sun is passing under the portcullis of the west.

The nighthawk squeaks, and the chewink jingles his strain, and the wood thrush; but I think there is no loud and general serenade from the birds.

I hear no veery. 

How much more swiftly the sun seems to perform the morning and evening portions of his journey, when he is nearest his starting-place or goal!

He is now almost ready to dip, — a round red disk shorn of his beams, — his head shaved like a captive led forth for execution.

Meanwhile the night is rapidly gathering her forces in deepening lines of shade under the east side of the willow causeway and the woods.

Now the sun has dipped into the western ocean.

He is one half below the horizon, and I see lines of distinct forest trees, miles and miles away on some ridge, now revealed against his disk.

It takes many a western woodland — go far enough, a whole Iowa-to span it.

Now only the smallest segment of its sphere, like a coal of fire rising above the forest, is seen sending a rosy glow up the horizon sky.

The illustrious traveller with whom we have passed a memorable day has gone his way, and we return slowly to our castle of the night.

But for some minutes the glowing portal clouds are essentially unchanged.

Pycnanthemum muticum behind Wheeler’s cottages; put it with the earliest of its class



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 24, 1853

Sophia's Viola pedata blossomed again a day or two ago. August 12, 1858 ("Saw a Viola pedata blooming again. "); September 4, 1856 ("Viola pedata again."); October 22, 1859 (" I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

The small linear leaved hypericum (H. Canadense) shows red capsules. See July 19, 1856 ("It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now.");  August 15, 1859 ("Hypericum Canadense, Canadian St. John's-wort, distinguished by its red capsules.");  August 19, 1851 ("Now for the pretty red capsules or pods of the Hypericum Canadense") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Where most I sought for flowers in April and May I do not think to go now. See July 18, 1854 ("Where I looked for early spring flowers I do not look for midsummer ones.")

The dark indigo-blue (Sophia says), waxy, and like blue china blue berries of the clintonia are already well ripe. See July 19, 1854 ("Clintonia berries in a day or two."); August 27, 1856 ("the peculiar large dark blue indigo clintonia berries of irregular form and dark-spotted, in umbels of four or five on very brittle stems which break with a snap and on erectish stemlets or pedicels.")

At the Corner Spring the berries of the trillium are already pink See July 22, 1852 ("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.")

This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries. See July 16, 1851 ("Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them."); July 31, 1856 ("The children should grow rich if they can get eight cents a quart for black berries, as they do."); August 5, 1852 ("The men, women, and children who perchance come hither blueberrying in their season get more than the value of the berries in the influences of the scene")

A golden sheen is reflected from the river so brightly that it dazzles me as much as the sun. See October 19 1855 ("if there were eyes enough to occupy all the east shore, the whole pond would be seen as one dazzling shimmering lake of melted gold.")

So many men in the fields haying now. Yellow butterflies in the road.

July 22.

P. M. – To Annursnack.

The Chenopodium hybridum (?); at least its leaves are dark-green, rhomboidal, and heart-shaped.

The orchis and spikenard at Azalea Brook are not yet open.

The early roses are now about done, — the sweet briar quite, I think.

I see sometimes houstonias still.

The elodea out.

Boehmeria not yet.

On one account, at least, I enjoy walking in the fields less at this season than at any other; there are so many men in the fields haying now.

Observed, on the wild basil on Annursnack, small reddish butterflies which looked like a part of the plant. It has a singularly soft, velvety leaf.

Smooth sumach berries crimson there.

There is a kind of low blackberry which does not bear large fruit but very dense clusters, by wall-sides, shaded by the vine or other plants often, of clammy and strong-tasted berries.

Yellow butterflies in the road.

I find the Campanula Americana of the West naturalized in our garden.

Also a silene (?) without visibly viscid stem and with swollen joints; apparently the snapdragon catchfly otherwise. Leaves opposite, sessile, lanceolate.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 22, 1853

There are so many men in the fields haying now. Compare July 22, 1854 ("The hottest night, — the last. It was almost impossible to pursue any work out-of- doors yesterday. There were but few men to be seen out.") 

On the wild basil . . . small reddish butterflies which looked like a part of the plant. See July 22, 1852 ("Tansy is now conspicuous by the roadsides, covered with small red butterflies"): See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly

The orchis and spikenard at Azalea Brook are not yet open. See July 12, 1853 ("Spikenard, not quite yet.The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook will soon flower.") The locally rare Spikenard (Aralia racemosa) that Thoreau saw near Azalea brook still persisted in 2007.~ Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts(and in Lincoln, Massachusetts) & Other Botanical Sites in Concord compiled by Ray Angelo./ See also May 31, 1853 ("I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora")

Yellow butterflies in the road. See July 14, 1852 ("See to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies in compact assembly in the road”); July 16, 1851 ("I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed");   July 19, 1856 ("Fleets of yellow butterflies on road."); July 26, 1854 ("Today I see in various parts of the town the yellow butterflies in fleets in the road, on bare damp sand, twenty or more collected within a diameter of five or six inches in many places."); September 3, 1854 ("Even at this season I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Butterflies

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

The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook.

July 12. 

White vervain. 

Checkerberry, maybe some days. 

Spikenard, not quite yet. 

The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook will soon flower. Either Gymnadenia tridentata or Platanthera flava.

Platanthera clavellata

Circæa alpina (?) there, but nearly eighteen inches high. 

Lycopus Virginicus, not open in shade; probably in a day or two. 

Wood horse-tail very large and handsome there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 12, 1853

White vervain. See July 12, 1856 (“White vervain.”) See also July 28, 1853 ("Saw lower leaves of the white vervain turned a reddish lake or claret."); August 6, 1853 ("lower leaves of some catnip and a white vervain have turned. "); August 29, 1856 ("An apparent white vervain with bluish flowers, as blue as bluets even or more so.")

The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis : Platanthera clavellata (Small Green Wood Orchid) aka Gymnadeniopsis clavellata, Habenaria clavellata , Gymnadenia tridentata (Green Woodland Orchid, Club-spur Orchid, Little Club Spur Bog Orchid). See August 14, 1856 ("Gymnadenia nearer the brook, how long?") Compare the TUBERCLED ORCHIS June 18, 1854 ("Platanthera flava at the Harrington Bathing - Place, possibly yesterday , — an unimportant yellowish - green spike of flowers."); June 21, 1852 ("The dwarf orchis Platanthera flava (Gray) at the bathing-place in Hubbard's meadow, not remarkable.")

Checkerberry, maybe some days. See July 16, 1856 (“Checkerberry, a day or two”). Note: “checkerberry" is another name for American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens).See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Checkerberry.

July 12. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July 12

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

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

The cherry-birds and robins seem to know the locality of every wild cherry in the town.

September 1

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

That reach in the road this side Britton's Camp might be called Nabalus Road, they are so abundant there. Some of them are fully six feet high, — a singularly tall and slender plant.

See, I think, my first tobacco-pipe this afternoon, now that they are about done, and have seen no pine- sap this year, abundant as both the above were last year. Like fungi, these plants are apparently scarce in a dry year, so that you might at first think them rare plants. This is a phenomenon of drought.

I see in different places small grubs splitting leaves now, and so marking them curiously with light brown or whitish on the green. Here are two at work in a Rhus Toxicodendron leaf. They appear to have been hatched within the leaf at the apex, and each has eaten upward on its own side of the midrib and equally fast, making a light-colored figure shaped like a column of smoke in the midst of the green. They perfectly split the leaf, making no visible puncture in it, even at the ribs or veins. Some creatures are so minute that they find food enough for them between the two sides of a thin leaf, without injuring the cuticle. The ox requires the meadows to be shorn for him, and cronches both blade and stalk, even of the coarsest grass, as corn; but these grubs do their browsing in narrower pastures, pastures not so wide as their own jaws, between fences (inviolable to them) of their own establishing, or along narrow lanes. There, secure from birds, they mine, and no harm can they do now that the green leaf has so commonly done its office.

If you would study the birds now, go where their food is, i. e. the berries, especially to the wild black cherries, elder-berries, poke berries, mountain-ash berries, and ere long the barberries, and for pigeons the acorns.

In the sprout-land behind Britton's Camp, I came to a small black cherry full of fruit, and then, for the first time for a long while, I see and hear cherry-birds — their shrill and fine seringo — and the note of robins, which of late are scarce. We sit near the tree and listen to the now unusual sounds of these birds, and from time to time one or two come dashing from out the sky toward this tree, till, seeing us, they whirl, disappointed, and perhaps alight on some neighboring twigs and wait till we are gone.

The cherry-birds and robins seem to know the locality of every wild cherry in the town. You are as sure to find them on them now, as bees and butterflies on the thistles. If we stay long, they go off with a fling, to some other cherry tree, which they know of but we do not. The neighborhood of a wild cherry full of fruit is now, for the notes of birds, a little spring come back again, and when, a mile or two from this, I was plucking a basketful of elder-berries (for which it was rather early yet), there too, to my surprise, I came on a flock of golden robins and of bluebirds, apparently feeding on them.

Excepting the vacciniums, now past prime and drying up, the cherries and elder berries are the two prevailing fruits now. We had remarked on the general scarcity and silence of the birds, but when we came to the localities of these fruits, there again we found the berry-eating birds assembled, — young (?) orioles and bluebirds at the elder-berries.

Green white pine cones are thrown down. An unusual quantity of these have been stripped for some time past, and I see the ground about the bases of the trees strewn with them.

The spikenard berries in the shade at Saw Mill have but just begun to turn.

The Polygonatum biflorum with its row of bluish-green berries (the blue a bloom), pendulous from the axils of the recurved stem, apparently now in its prime.

Red choke-berry ripe.

Smooth sumach probably hardly ripe yet generally.

The fruit of the arum is the most remarkable that I see this afternoon, such its brilliancy, color, and form; perhaps in prime now. It is among the most easily detected now on the floor of the swamp, its bright- scarlet cone above the fallen and withered leaves and amid its own brown or whitish and withering leaves. Its own leaves and stem perhaps soft and decaying, while it is perfectly fresh and dazzling. It has the brightest gloss of any fruit I remember, and this makes the green ones about as remarkable as the scarlet. With, perchance, a part of the withered spathe still investing and veiling it. The scarlet fruit of the arum spots the swamp floor.

September 1, 2023

Now, also, bright-colored fungi of various colors on the swamp floor begin to compete with these fruits. I see a green one.

The elder-berry cyme, held erect, is of very regular form, four principal divisions drooping toward each quarter around an upright central one. Are said to make a good dye. They fill your basket quickly, the cymes are so large and lie up so light.

The autumnal dandelion is a prevailing flower now, but since it shuts up in the afternoon it might not be known as common unless you were out in the morning or in a dark afternoon. Now, at 11 a. m., it makes quite a show, yet at 2 p. m. I do not notice it.

Bought a pair of shoes the other day, and, observing that as usual they were only wooden-pegged at the toes, I required the seller to put in an extra row of iron pegs there while I waited for them. So he called to his boy to bring those zinc pegs, but I insisted on iron pegs and no zinc ones. He gave me considerable advice on the subject of shoes, but I suggested that even the wearer of shoes, of whom I was one, had an opportunity to learn some of their qualities. I have learned to respect my own opinion in this matter. As I do not use blacking and the seller often throws in a box of blacking when I buy a pair of shoes, they accumulate on my hands.

Saw this afternoon, on a leaf in the Saw Mill woodpath, a very brilliant beetle a quarter or a third of an inch in length with brilliant green and copper reflections. The same surface, or any part of the upper surface, of the bug was green from one point of view and burnished copper from another. Yet there was nothing in its form to recommend this bug.

You must be careful not to eat too many nuts. I one winter met a young man whose face was broken out into large pimples and sores, and when I inquired what was the matter, he answered that he and his wife were fond of shagbarks, and therefore he had bought a bushel of them, and they spent their winter evenings eating them, and this was the consequence.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 1, 1859

The cherry-birds and robins seem to know the locality of every wild cherry in the town. See August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them."); August 29, 1854 ("Many birds nowadays resort to the wild black cherry tree, as here front of Tarbell's. I see them continually coming and going directly from and to a great distance, — cherry birds, robins, and kingbirds "); September 1, 1860: ("Cherries are especially birds' food, and . . . I shall think the birds have the best right to them..")

The fruit of the arum is the most remarkable that I see this afternoon, such its brilliancy, color, and form; perhaps in prime now. See August 22, 1852 ("The arum berries are mostly devoured, apparently by birds . . . Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them."); 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 4, 1856 ("Splendid scarlet arum berries there now in prime.”); September 4, 1857 ("Arum berries ripe.”); September 24, 1856 ("Aarum berries still fresh"); 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. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Arum Berries

Now, also, bright-colored fungi of various colors on the swamp floor. See September 1, 1856  ("There are many very beautiful lemon- yellow ones of various forms, some shaped like buttons, some becoming finely scalloped on the edge, some club-shaped and hollow, of the most delicate and rare but decided tints, contrasting well with the decaying leaves about them. There are others also pure white, others a wholesome red, others brown, and some even a light indigo-blue above and beneath and throughout.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Season for Fungi

The autumnal dandelion is a prevailing flower now. See August 4. 1854 ("The autumnal dandelion is now more common."); September 2, 1854 ("The autumnal dandelion is conspicuous on the shore."); September 13, 1856 ("Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill")

Green white pine cones are thrown down.  See September 16, 1857("I see green and closed cones beneath, which the squirrels have thrown down.")

Bought a pair of shoes the other day. See EDK August 9, 1860 (" Bot a pair of shoes for $1.25"); December 4, 1856 ("When I bought my boots yesterday, Hastings ran over his usual rigmarole.")

Botanizing the East Branch

July 31. 

Friday. 

This morning heard from the camp the red-eye, robin (P. said it was a sign of rain), tweezer-bird, i. e. parti-colored warbler, chickadee, wood thrush, and soon after starting heard or saw a blue jay. . . . 

I saw here my sweet-scented Aster macrophyllus (?) just out, also, near end of carry in rocky woods, a new plant, the halenia or spurred gentian, which I observed afterward on the carries all the way down to near the mouth of the East Branch, eight inches to two feet high. 

I also saw here, or soon after, the red cohosh berries, ripe, (for the first time in my life); spikenard, etc. 

The commonest aster of the woods was A. acuminatus, not long out, and the commonest solidago on the East Branch, Solidago squarrosa. . . .

P. said that his mother was a Province woman and as white as anybody, but his father a pure-blooded Indian. I saw no trace of white blood in his face, and others, who knew him well and also his father, were confident that his mother was an Indian and suggested that she was of the Quoddy tribe (belonged to New Brunswick), who are often quite light-colored. . . . 

[Below Bowlin stream] I got  one (apparently) Lilium superbum flower, with strongly revolute sepals and perfectly smooth leaves beneath, otherwise not large nor peculiar. 

On this East Branch we saw many of the small purple fringed orchis (Platanthera psycodes), but no large ones (P. fimbriata), which alone were noticed on the West Branch and Umbazookskus. 

Also saw often the Lysimachia ciliata, and once white cohosh berries, and at one place methinks the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum (?) with the other. . . . 

On a small bare sand or gravel bar, I observed that same Prunus which grows on the rocks at Bellows Falls, whose leaf might at first sight be mistaken for that of a willow. It is evidently the Prunus depressa (sand cherry) of Pursh, and distinct, as a variety at least, from the common allied one (P. pumila of Pursh), which is not depressed even when it grows, as it often does abundantly, in river meadows (e. g. Edmund Hosmer's on Assabet). The leaf of the former is more lanceoate-spatulate, and I have never seen it in Concord, though the P. pumila is very common here. Gray describes but one kind. 

Jackson, being some miles below this, in the East Branch, the 6th of October, twenty years ago, says, "There are several small gravelly islands covered with a profusion of deep purple beach plums, but since they had been frozen they were found to be taste less and insipid." We did not see any of these.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 31, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We had smooth but swift water for a considerable distance, where we glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks and kingfishers. But, as usual, our smooth progress ere long came to an end, and we were obliged to carry canoe and all about half a mile down the right bank, around some rapids or falls. . . .I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on account of falls or rapids. We were expecting all the while that the river would take a final leap and get to smooth water, but there was no improvement this fore noon. However, the carries were an agreeable variety. So surely as we stepped out of the canoe and stretched our legs we found ourselves in a blueberry and raspberry garden, each side of our rocky trail around the falls being lined with one or both.. . . For seven or eight miles below that succession of " Grand " falls, the aspect of the banks as well as the character of the stream was changed. After passing a tributary from the northeast, perhaps Bowlin Stream, we had good swift smooth water, with a regular slope, such as I have described. Low, grassy banks and muddy shores began.. . Soon afterward a white-headed eagle sailed down the stream before us. We drove him several miles, while we were looking for a good place to camp, for we expected to be overtaken by a shower, — and still we could distinguish him by his white tail, sailing away from time to time from some tree by the shore still farther down the stream... . We at length found a place to our minds, on the west bank, about a mile below the mouth of the Seboois, ...in a very dense spruce wood above a gravelly shore... .")