A May storm, gentle and warm – Foliage changes several shades darker in the rain seen while still cloudy.

May 19. 

Thunder-showers in the night, and it still storms, with holdings-up. A May storm, gentle and rather warm. 

The days of the golden willow are over for this season; their withered catkins strew the causeways and cover the water and also my boat, which is moored beneath them. 

The locust has grown three inches and is blossom-budded. It may come just after the white ash at least, and before the celtis. 

The weather toward evening still cloudy and some what mizzling. 

The foliage of the young maples, elms, etc., in the street has become, since the rain commenced, several shades darker, changing from its tender and lighter green, as if the electricity of the thunder-storm may have had some effect on it. 

It is best observed while it is still cloudy; almost a bluish, no longer yellowish green, it is peculiarly rich. 

The very grass appears to have undergone a similar change.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1853

The days of the golden willow are over for this season. Compare May 14, 1852 ("Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing, Ah! willow, willow! These willows have yellow bark, bear yellow flowers and yellowish-green leaves, and are now haunted by the summer yellowbird and Maryland yellow-throat") See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Willows on the Causeway.

The locust has grown three inches and is blossom-budded. See June 10, 1853 ("The locust bloom is now perfect, filling the street with its sweetness."); June 7, 1854 ("The locusts so full of pendulous white racemes five inches long, filling the air with their sweetness and resounding with the hum of humble and honey bees"); June 9, 1852 ("The locust in bloom"); June 11, 1856 ("The locust in graveyard shows but few blossoms yet.")

It may come just after the white ash at least, and before the celtis. See May 18, 1853 ("White ash fully in bloom."); May 18, 1853 ("The Celtis occidentalis in bloom, maybe a day")

A May storm, gentle and rather warm.See May 17, 1853 ("Does not summer begin after the May storm?”);  note to May 18, 1853 ("Perchance a May storm is brewing. This day it has mizzled  . . . Methinks this is common at this season of the tender foliage.")

The very grass appears to have undergone a similar change. Compare May 19, 1860 ("The grass and the tender leaves, refreshed and expanded by the rain, are peculiarly bright and yellowish-green when seen in a favorable light.").

May 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 19

Foliage changes

several shades darker in the rain

seen while still cloudy.

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

He may have thought that no one but he came to Gowing's Swamp these afternoons

May 30.

 P. M. — To Gowing's Swamp. 

Gowing's Swamp
August 23, 1854
amid the sphagnum, lambkill, Kalmia glauca, andromeda, cranberry, etc

Sorrel begins to redden fields. 

The peculiarly tender foliage (yellowish) which began to invest the dark evergreens on the 22d lasts a week or more, growing darker.

May 30, 2019

No American mountain-ash out. 

When I entered the interior meadow of Gowing's Swamp I heard a slight snort, and found that I had suddenly come upon a woodchuck amid the sphagnum, lambkill, Kalmia glauca, andromeda, cranberry, etc., there. It was only seven feet off, and, being surprised, would not run. It would only stand erect from time to time, — perfectly erect with its blackish paws held like hands near together in front, — just so as to bring its head, or eyes, above the level of the lambkill, kalmia, etc., and look round, turning now this ear toward me, then that; and every now and then it would make a short rush at me, half a foot or so, with a snort, and then draw back, and also grit its teeth — which it showed — very audibly, with a rattling sound, evidently to intimidate me. I could not drive it, but it would steadily face me and rush toward me thus. Also it made a short motion occasionally as if to bury itself by burrowing there. It impressed me as a singularly wild and grizzly [sic] native, survivor of the red man. 

He may have thought that no one but he came to Gowing's Swamp these afternoons. 

Its colors were gray, reddish brown, and blackish, the gray-tipped wind hairs giving it a grizzly look above, and when it stood up its distinct rust-color beneath was seen, while the top of its head was dark-brown, becoming black at snout, as also its paws and its little rounded ears. Its head from snout to ears, when it stood up erect, made a nearly horizontal line. It did much looking round. When thus erect, its expression and posture were very bear-like, with the clumsiness of the bear. Though I drew off three or four rods, it would not retreat into the thicket (which was only a rod off) while I was there so near. 

The scheuchzeria is at height or past. 

E. Emerson's Calla palustris out the 27th. 

Eleocharis palustris, R. W. E.'s meadow, not long. 

Hear of linnaea out, the 28th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1859

Sorrel begins to redden fields. See May 19, 1860 ("Sorrel just begins to redden some fields"); May 22, 1854 ("The grass so short and fresh, the tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape, the birds now most musical, the sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health, — all these things make earth now a paradise.");  May 26, 1852 ("Walking home from surveying, the fields are just beginning to be reddened with sorrel. "); June 12, 1859 ("I am struck with the beauty of the sorrel now. . . What a wholesome red! . . . There is hardly a more agreeable sight at this season.")


The peculiarly tender foliage (yellowish) which began to invest the dark evergreens on the 22d lasts a week or more, growing darker. See note to May 22, 1859 ("The foliage is never more conspicuously a tender yellow than now. This lasts a week from this date, and then begins to be confounded with the older green. "). See also May 27, 1855("How important the dark evergreens now seen through the haze in the distance and contrasting with the gauze-like, as yet thin-clad deciduous trees"); May 26, 1857 ("The silvery leafets of the deciduous trees invest the woods like a permanent mist. At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air.")


The interior meadow of Gowing's Swamp. See note to January 30, 1858  ("The pool, where there is nothing but water and sphagnum to be seen and where you cannot go in the summer, is about two rods long and one and a half wide.")

Its colors were gray, reddish brown, and blackish, the gray-tipped wind hairs giving it a grizzly look above, and when it stood up its distinct rust-color beneath was seen, while the top of its head was dark-brown, becoming black at snout, as also its paws and its little rounded ears. See note to April 29, 1855 ("See his shining black eyes and black snout and his little erect ears. He is of a light brown forward at this distance (hoary above, yellowish or sorrel beneath), gradually darkening backward to the end of the tail, which is dark-brown. The general aspect is grizzly.")

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

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 foliage is never more conspicuously a tender yellow than now.

May 22. 

Sunday.

May 22, 2019

 A warm, drizzling day, the tender yellow leafets now generally conspicuous, and contrasting with the almost black evergreens which they have begun to invest. The foliage is never more conspicuously a tender yellow than now. This lasts a week from this date, and then begins to be confounded with the older green. 

We have had rain for three or four days, and hence the tender foliage is the more yellow.

Swallows fly low. 

The Ranunculus bulbosus is abundant. 

I see that by the very severe frost of about the 15th, or full of the moon, a great many leaves were killed, as young oaks, cultivated grapes, butternuts, ferns, etc., etc., which now show brown or blackish.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 22, 1859

The tender yellow leafets now generally conspicuous, and contrasting with the almost black evergreens which they have begun to invest. See May 22, 1855 ("The deciduous trees leafing begin to clothe or invest the evergreens."). Also May 14, 1852 ("The deciduous trees are rapidly investing the evergreens, making the woods rich and bosky by degrees. ); May 18, 1852 ("They are now being invested with the light, sunny, yellowish-green of the deciduous trees."); May 26, 1857 ("The silvery leafets of the deciduous trees invest the woods like a permanent mist."); May 27, 1855 (" . . . deciduous trees rapidly investing evergreens."); June 9, 1852 (“The deciduous trees have filled up the intervals between the evergreens, and the woods are bosky now.”)

The foliage is never more conspicuously a tender yellow than now. See May 22, 1854 ("Now the springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods. . .., the tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape."); May 18, 1852 (“This tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date.”); May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.”)


Severe frost of about the 15th. See  May 21, 1855 (“[C]old weather, indeed, from the 20th to 23d inclusive. Sit by fires, and sometimes wear a greatcoat and expect frosts.”); May 31, 1856 ("It has been very cold for two or three days, and to-night a frost is feared. The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day. The hickory leaves are blackened by blowing in the cold wind.") May 31, 1858 ("There were severe frosts on the nights of the 28th and 29th, and now I see the hickories turned quite black");