Witch-hazel in prime – Yellow leaves by their color conceal the flowers.

October 4

October 4, 2018

 

P. M.  Paddled up the Assabet. Strong north wind, bringing down leaves. 

Many white and red maple, bass, elm, and black willow leaves are strewn over the surface of the water, light, crisp colored skiffs. The bass is in the prime of its change, a mass of yellow. 

See B a-fishing notwithstanding the wind. A man runs down, fails, loses self-respect, and goes a-fishing, though he were never seen on the river before. Yet methinks his “misfortune” is good for him, and he is the more mellow and humane. Perhaps he begins to perceive more clearly that the object of life is something else than acquiring property, and he really stands in a truer relation to his fellow-men than when he commanded a false respect of them. There he stands at length, per chance better employed than ever, holding communion with nature and himself and coming to understand his real position and relation to men in this world. It is better than a poor debtors’ prison, better than most successful money-getting. 

I see some rich-weed in the shade of the Hemlocks, for some time a clear, almost ivory, white, and the boehmeria is also whitish. 

Rhus Toxicodendron in the shade is a pure yellow; in the sun, more scarlet or reddish. 

Grape leaves apparently as yellow as ever.

Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown. 

The white maples that changed first are about bare. 

The brownish-yellow clethra leaves thickly paint the bank. 

Salix lucida leaves are one third clear yellow. 

The Osmunda regalis is yellowed and partly crisp and withered, but a little later than the cinnamon, etc. 

Scare up two ducks, which go off with a sharp creaking ar-r-week, ar-r-week, ar-r-week. Is not this the note of the wood duck? 

Hornets are still at work in their nests. 

Ascend the hill. 

The cranberry meadows are a dull red. 

See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools.

The Great Meadows, where not mown, have long been brown with wool-grass. 

The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed. The outmost parts and edges of the foliage are orange, the recesses green, as if the outmost parts, being turned toward the sunny fire, were first baked by it.

Going by Dr. Barrett’s, just at the edge of evening, I saw on the sidewalk something bright like fire, as if molten lead were scattered along, and then I wondered if a drunkard’s spittle were luminous, and proceeded to poke it on to a leaf with a stick. It was rotten wood. I found that it came from the bottom of some old fence-posts which had just been dug up near by and there glowed for a foot or two, being quite rotten and soft, and it suggested that a lamp-post might be more luminous at bottom than at top. 

I cut out a handful and carried it about. It was quite soft and spongy and a very pale brown — some almost white — in the light, quite soft and flaky; and as I withdrew it gradually from the light, it began to glow with a distinctly blue fire in its recesses, becoming more universal and whiter as the darkness increased. Carried toward a candle, it is quite a blue light. 

One man whom I met in the street was able to tell the time by his watch, holding it over what was in my hand. 

The posts were oak, probably white. 

Mr. Melvin, the mason, told me that he heard his dog barking the other night, and, going out, found that it was at the bottom of an old post he had dug up during the day, which was all aglow.

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

Rhus Toxicodendron in the shade is a pure yellow; in the sun, more scarlet or reddish. See September 30, 1857 (“Rhus Toxicodendron turned yellow and red, handsomely dotted with brown.”); October 3, 1857 ("The Rhus radicans also turns yellow and red or scarlet, like the Toxicodendron."); October 11, 1857 ("I see some fine clear yellows from the Rhus Toxicodendron on the bank by the hemlocks and beyond.")

Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime.  See September 24, 1853 ("Witch-hazel well out."); September 27, 1857 ("Witch-hazel two thirds yellowed. "); September 29, 1853 ("The witch-hazel . . .has but begun to blossom . . . Its leaves are yellowed."); October 9, 1851 ("The sunlight from over the top of the hill lights up its top-most sprays and yellow blossoms. Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other. I lie on my back with joy under its bough. While its leaves fall, its blossoms spring.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

Osmunda regalis is yellowed and partly crisp and withered, but a little later than the cinnamon. See  October 1, 1858 ("The cinnamon ferns are crisp and sour in open grounds"); October 11, 1857 ("The osmunda ferns are generally withered and brown except where very much protected from frost. The O. regalis is the least generally withered of them"); October 12, 1858 ("The Osmunda regalis . . . in and about the swamps, are generally brown and withered, though with green ones intermixed. They are still, however, interesting, with their pale brown or cinnamon-color and decaying scent.")

Hornets are still at work in their nests. See October 24, 1858 ("That large hornets’ nest which I saw on the 4th is now deserted, and I bring it home. But in the evening, warmed by my fire, two or three come forth and crawl over it, and I make haste to throw it out the window.")

See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools. See October 2, 1859 ("Nowadays I see most of the election-cake fungi, with crickets and slugs eating them. ") See also note to See note to September 21, 1859 ("And now at last I see a few toadstools, — the election-cake (the yellowish, glazed over)"

Holding communion with nature and himself and coming to understand his real position and relation to men in this world. See June 26, 1853 ("They might go there a thousand times, perchance, before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure, — before they began to angle for the pond itself."); December 2, 1856 ("There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords.") 

See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools. See note to October 20, 1856 (“I notice, as elsewhere of late, a great many brownish-yellow (and some pink) election-cake fungi, eaten by crickets; about three inches in diameter.")

The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed. See October 8, 1856 ("The hickory leaves are among the handsomest now, varying from green through yellow, more or less broadly green-striped on the principal veins, to pure yellow, at first almost lemon-yellow, at last browner and crisped. This mingling of yellow and green on the same leaf, the green next the veins where the life is most persistent, is very pleasing."); October 15, 1858 ("Small hickories are the clearest and most delicate yellow in the shade of the woods. ");  October 22, 1858 ("The leaves of the hickory are a very rich yellow, though they may be quite withered and fallen, but they become brown.");  October 24, 1853 ("Some hickories bare, some with rich golden-brown leaves. "); October 24, 1858 ("Hickories are two thirds fallen, at least."); November 13, 1858 ("One hickory at least (on the hill) has not lost its leaves yet, i. e., has a good many left. So they are a month falling.") See also AA Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory

I saw on the sidewalk something bright like fire.  See 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, 1858 ("My phosphorescent wood still glows a little, though it has lain on my stove all day, and, being wet, it is much improved still.") See also July 24, 1857 and The Maine Woods ("Getting up some time after midnight to collect the scattered brands together, while my companions were sound asleep, I observed, partly in the fire, which had ceased to blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of light . . . phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see . . . I did not regret my not having seen this before, since I now saw it under circumstances so favorable. I was in just the frame of mind to see something wonderful, and this was a phenomenon adequate to my circumstances and expectation, and it put me on the alert to see more like it.")

October 4. See A Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, October 4

Witch-hazel in prime –

Yellow leaves by their color

conceal the flowers.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Yellow leaves by their color

conceal the flowers.

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-581004 

I spent my afternoon among the desmodiums and lespedezas, sociably.

August 19, 2016

August  19.

P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill. 

Dog-day weather as for clouds, but less smoky than before the rains of ten days ago. 

I see Hypericum Canadense and mutilum abundantly open at 3 p. M. Apparently they did not bear the dry, hot weather of July so well. They are apparently now in prime, but the Sarothra is not open at this hour. The perforatum is quite scarce now, and apparently the corymbosum; the ellipticum quite done. The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like. 

The dangle-berries in Hubbard's Grove have a peculiar, not very pleasant, flavor and a tough skin. I see white buds on swamp-pink, just formed, also green checkerberries about grown. 

In the radula swamp the sweet scent of clethra; some peculiarly bright orange toadstools with a wavy edge. Now for spotted aralia leaves, brown pupils with yellow iris amid the green. 

The whorled polygala is a plant almost universally dispersed but inconspicuous. 

I spent my afternoon among the desmodiums and lespedezas, sociably. The further end of Fair Haven Hill-side is a great place for them.  All the lespedezas are apparently more open and delicate in the woods, and of a darker green, especially the violet ones. When not too much crowded, their leaves are very pretty and perfect. 

Ivy berries dry and apparently ripe on the rocks (Toxicodendron) . 

Low blueberries, though some are a very little wilted, are very sweet and good as well as abundant. Huckleberries getting to be suspected. 

What countless varieties of low blackberries! Here, in this open pine grove, I pluck some large fresh and very sweet ones when they are mostly gone without. So they are continued a little longer to us.

Lobelia spicata still. 

The wind rises and the pasture thistle down is blown about. 

Lespedezas and desmodiums are now generally in prime. The latter are an especially interesting family, with commonly such delicate, spreading panicles, the plants themselves in their distribution so scattered and inobvious, and the open and spreading panicle of commonly verdigris-green flowers (in drying) make them to be unobserved when you are near them. The panicle of flowers often as large or larger than all the rest of the plant, with their peculiar chain-like seed- pods, rhomboidal or semiorbicular, or with concave backs. They love dry hillsides. They are not so abundant, after all, but I feel an agreeable surprise as often as I come across a new locality for desmodiums. Rarely find one kind without one or two more species near, their great spreading panicles, yet delicate, open, and airy, occupying the August air. Like raking masts with countless guys slanted far over the neighboring plants. 

Some of these desmodiums, the paniculatum, Marilandicum, nudiflorum, rigidum, and Dillenii, are so fine and inobvious that a careless observer would look through their thin flowery panicles without observing any flower at all. 

The flowery beds of D. Marilandicum reveal themselves to me like a blue-green mist or gauze veil spread on the grass. I find them abundant in some places where I am sure there were none last year. They are outsiders, few and far between, further removed from man's walks than most plants, considering that there is such a variety of them. A dry, thin family of many species, nowhere abundant, yet widely dispersed, looking out from dry hillsides and exercising their dry wit on the race of man. The lespedezas and D. Canadense, more stiff and wand-like, nearer to man and his paths. The D. rigidum, Dillenii, etc., etc., more spreading and open, thin and fleeting and dispersed like the aborigines. They occupy the same dry soil, too. 

When huckleberries are getting stale on dry hill sides, amid the huckleberry bushes and in sprout-lands and by paths you may observe them. The broad meshes of their panicles rarely catch the eye. There is some thing witch-like about them; though so rare and remote, yet evidently, from those bur-like pods, expecting to come in contact with some travelling man or beast without their knowledge, to be transported to new hill sides; lying in wait, as it were, to catch by the hem of the berry-pickers' garments and so get a lift to new quarters. They occupy a great deal of room, but are the less obvious for it. They put their chains about you, and they cling like savage children to their mother's back or breast. They escape your observation, as it were under bare poles. You only notice as far up as their green sails are set, perchance, or to the cross-trees, not the tall, tapering, raking spars, whence are looped the life-lines and halyards. Or it is like that slanting mast and rigging in navy-yards where masts are inserted.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 19, 1856

The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like. See July 26, 1856 ("The pod of the ellipticum, when cut, smells like a bee."); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”); August 30, 1856 ("The sarothra is now apparently in prime on the Great Fields, and comes near being open now, at 3 p. m. Bruised, it has the fragrance of sorrel and lemon, rather pungent or stinging, like a bee.”); 

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

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 changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor.

August 14.

August 14. 

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

Aster tradescanti, apparently a day or two. 

Hypopitys, just beyond the last large (two-stemmed) chestnut at Saw Mill Brook, about done. Apparently a fungus like plant. It erects itself in seed. 

Gymnadenia nearer the brook, how long? 

Is that slender erect shrub near oak stump at Saw Mill Cornus circinate?  

Solidago odora abundantly out. 

The low wood-paths are strewn with toadstools now, and I begin to perceive their musty scent, — crowding one another by the path-side when there was not a fellow in sight.

The recent heavy rains have caused many leaves to fall, especially chestnut. They already spot the ground, rapidly yellowing and very handsomely spotted. I never weary of their colors. I see those eye-spots on the low hickory leaves also. All the Flint's Pond wood-paths are strewn with these gay-spotted chestnut leaves, and the changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor. 

Sedum Telephium, some time. Flowering blackberry still. 

A short elliptic-leaved Lespedeza violacea, loose and open in Veery Nest Path, at Flint's Pond. In press. 

On roadside heap at Emerson's, a portulaca with leaves one inch wide and seven petals (!) instead of five.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 14, 1856

Gymnadenia nearer the brook, how long? See July 12, 1853 ("The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook will soon flower. ")

The low wood-paths are strewn with toadstools now . . . See August 14, 1853 ("In the low woodland paths full of rank weeds, there are countless great fungi of various forms and colors . . .”).  Compare August 14, 1854 ("The roads nowadays are covered with a light-colored, powdery dust several inches deep,”)

The changing sarsaparilla leaves begin to yellow the forest floor. See September 6, 1854 ("The sarsaparilla leaves, green or reddish, are spotted with yellow eyes centred with reddish, or dull-reddish eyes with yellow iris. They have a very pretty effect held over the forest floor . . .”)

A short elliptic-leaved Lespedeza violacea, loose and open in Veery Nest Path . See  August 4, 1856 ("Lespedeza violacea, perhaps the largest-leafed variety, . . . well out .”); August 5, 1855 ("The common small violet lespedeza out, elliptic leaved, one inch long.”); August 13, 1856 (“In Bittern Cliff Woods that (apparently) very oblong elliptical leafed Lespedeza violacea, growing very loose and open on a few long petioles, one foot high by four or five inches wide.”); August 17, 1852 ("Lespedeza violacea var. (apparently) angustifolia (?), sessiliflora of Bigelow.");

I see a deep full river on which vessels may float.

August 12. 

11 a. m. — To Hill. 

The Hypericum mutilum is well out at this hour. 

The river is now at a standstill, some three feet above its usual level. The pickerel-weed is all covered, and lilies, and much of the button-bush and mikania. It is as great an accident as can befall these flowers. It is novel to behold this great, full tide in which you perceive some current by the eddies, in which no snarl of weeds is seen. So different from that Potamogeton River, where you caught a crab at every stroke of the oar, and farmers drove their hay-carts across. Instead of watery gleaming fields of potamogetons in which the boatman was entangled, and drifting vallisneria on which the dragon-flies alighted, I see a deep full river on which vessels may float, and I feel at a distance from terra firma when on its bosom. 

P. M. — To Moore's Swamp.

Gerardia purpurea, two or three days. 

The mulgedium in that swamp is very abundant and a very stately plant, so erect and soldier-like, in large companies, rising above all else, with its very regular long, sharp, elliptic head and bluish-white flowers. 

Again I examine that very strict solidago, which perhaps I must call wand-stemmed. Perhaps it is only a swamp variety of S. stricta, yet the leaves are thicker and darker(?)-green, and the upper commonly broader, often elliptic, pointed, less recurved and not wavy. Stem and head is now commonly much more strict and branches more erect, and racemes less one-sided, but in larger and maturer ones they are at length recurving and forming a pyramid like S. stricta. Rays are fewer and broader, five or six; stem reddish, with apparently more branchlets or leafets in axils.

Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus (which may have opened near August 1st, say only a week). Only the first flowers out. At edge of the last clearing south of spring. I cannot identify it. It has very short but not margined petioles; leaves narrower than yesterday's, and rough beneath as well as above. The outer scales of involucre a little the longest; but I think this of little importance, for the involucre of the H. divaricatus is very variable, hardly two alike; rays about ten. In some respects it is most like H. strumosus, but not downy beneath. The bruised leaves of these helianthuses are rather fragrant. 

It is thick, smoky, dog-day weather again. 

Bradford speaks of the dog's-tooth violet as a plant which disappears early. 

The Aster patens is very handsome by the side of Moore's Swamp on the bank, — large flowers, more or less purplish or violet, each commonly (four or five) at the end of a long peduncle, three to six inches long, at right angles with the stem, giving it an open look. 

Snake-head, or chelone. 

On the edge of the ditch opposite the spring, Epilobium coloratum, and also what I must call E. palustre of Willdenow and Pursh and Eaton. It is smooth or smoothish, leaves somewhat toothed or subdenticulate, peduncle one inch long, flowers white. 

The most interesting domes I behold are not those of Oriental temples and palaces, but of the toadstools. On this knoll in the swamp they are little pyramids of Cheops or Cholula, which also stand on the plain, very delicately shaded off. They have burst their brown tunics as they expanded, leaving only a clear-brown apex, and on every side these swelling roofs or domes are patched and shingled with the fragments, delicately shaded off thus into every tint of brown to the edge. As if this creation of a night would thus imitate the weather-stains of centuries. Toads' temples. So charming is gradation! 

Gerardia pedicularia, how long? 

What a wilderness of weeds is Moore's Swamp now! Tall rough goldenrods, erechthites, poke, Aster Radula, dogwood, etc., etc. It looks as if the potatoes which grew there would be poisonous. 

An arrowhead in Peter's Path. How many times I have found an arrowhead by that path, as if that had been an Indian trail! Perchance it was, for some of the paths we travel are much older than we think, especially some which the colored race in our midst still use, for they are nearest to the Indian trails.

The Emerson children say that Aralia nudicaulis berries are good to eat. The leaves of Sericocarpus conyzoides are fragrant when bruised. Black cherries ripe. 

Saw the primrose open at sundown. The corolla burst part way open and unfolded rapidly; the sepals flew back with a smart spring. In a minute or two the corolla was opened flat and seemed to rejoice in the cool, serene light and air. 

Lespedeza capitata, not long. The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.

The late rains have tried the roofs severely. Tenants have complained to their landlords, and now I see carpenters setting up their staging and preparing to shingle on various sides.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 12, 1856

Gerardia purpurea, two or three days. See August 20, 1852 ("The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass.")
Saw the primrose open at sundown. . . . seemed to rejoice in the cool, serene light and air. See July 5, 1856 ("The large evening-primrose below the foot of our garden does not open till some time between 6.30 and 8 P. M. or sundown. . . . freshly out in the cool of the evening at sundown, as if enjoying the serenity of the hour.”)

Snake-head, or chelone: The name of the genus Chelone comes from the Greek word meaning a tortoise, from the resemblance of the corolla to a tortoise-head. Snake-head. Turtle-head. Turtle-bloom. Shell flower. Not the snake-head arethusa of July 7, 1856.  See August 1, 1852  ("Chelone glabra [white turtlehead] just out.”)

Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus . . . See August 11, 1856 ("A new sunflower at Wheeler's Bank, . . ., which I will call the tall rough sunflower; opened say August 1st”); August 1, 1852 ("The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats; also Helianthus annuus, common sunflower.”); August 13, 1858 ("The broad-leaved helianthus on bank opposite Assabet Spring is not nearly out, though the H. divaricatus was abundantly out on the 11th.")  GoBotany lists:

Helianthus annuus, common sunflower
Helianthus divaricatus, woodland sunflower
Helianthus strumosus, pale-leaved sunflower

What a wilderness of weeds is Moore's Swamp now! See August 31, 1853 (The rank growth of flowers (commonly called weeds) in this swamp now impresses me like a harvest of flowers. . . .One would think that all the poison that is in the earth and air must be extracted out of them by this rank vegetation.")

I love this moisture in its season.

Rhexia virgini

August 1. 

Burdock, several days at least. Erechthites, apparently two or three days, by Peter's Path, end of Cemetery, the middle flowers first.

Crotalaria in fine lechea field, how long? Still out, and some pods fully grown. 

Liatris will apparently open in a day or two. 

Diplopappus umbellatus at Peter's wall. Desmodium Canadense, some time; several great stems five feet high, a little spreading. 

August 01, 2016

Since July 30th, inclusive, we have had perfect dog-days without interruption. The earth has suddenly invested with a thick musty mist. The sky has become a mere fungus. A thick blue musty veil of mist is drawn before the sun. The sun has not been visible, except for a moment or two once or twice a day, all this time, nor the stars by night. Moisture reigns. 

You cannot dry a napkin at the window, nor press flowers without their mildewing. You imbibe so much moisture from the atmosphere that you are not so thirsty, nor is bathing so grateful as a week ago. The burning heat is tempered, but as you lose sight of the sky and imbibe the musty, misty air, you exist as a vegetable, a fungus. 

Unfortunate those who have not got their hay. I see them wading in overflowed meadows and pitching fthe black and mouldy swaths about in vain that they may dry. In the meanwhile, vegetation is becoming rank, vines of all kinds are rampant. Squashes and melons are said to grow a foot in a night. But weeds grow as fast. The corn unrolls. Berries abound and attain their full size. 

Once or twice in the day there is an imperfect gleam of yellow sunlight for a moment through some thinner part of the veil, reminding us that we have not seen the sun so long, but no blue sky is revealed. The earth is completely invested with cloud like wreaths of vapor (yet fear no rain and need no veil), beneath which flies buzz hollowly and torment, and mosquitoes hum and sting as if they were born of such an air. 

The drooping spirits of mosquitoes revive, and they whet their stings anew. Legions of buzzing flies blacken the furniture. (For a week at least have heard that snapping sound under pads.) We have a dense fog every night, which lifts itself but a short distance during the day. At sundown I see it curling up from the river and meadows. 

However, I love this moisture in its season. I believe it is good to breathe, wholesome as a vapor bath.

Toadstools shoot up in the yards and paths. 

The Great Meadows being a little wet, — hardly so much as usual, — I took off my shoes and went barefoot some two miles through the cut-grass, from Peter's to Sphaerocarpa Pools and backward by river. Very little grass cut there yet. The cut-grass is bad for tender feet, and you must be careful not to let it draw through your hands, for it will cut like a fine saw. 

I was surprised to see dense beds of rhexia in full bloom there, apparently on hummocks a rod in diameter left by the ice, or in long ridges mixed with ferns and some Lysimachia lanceolata, arrowhead, etc. They make a splendid show, these brilliant rose-colored patches, especially in the neighborhood of Copan. It is about the richest color to be seen now. Yet few ever see them in this perfection, unless the haymaker who levels them, or the birds that fly over the meadow. 

Far in the broad wet meadows, on the hummocks and ridges, these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over. We, dwelling and walking on the dry upland, do not suspect their existence. How obvious and gay to those creatures that fly over the meadow! Seen only by birds and mowers. These gay standards otherwise unfurled in vain. 

Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow there. 

Ludwigia sphaerocarpa apparently a week out, a foot and a half to two feet high.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 1, 1856

Liatris will apparently open in a day or two See );August 26, 1858 ("The liatris is about (or nearly) in prime."); September 6, 1859 ("The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. It is a very rich purple in favorable lights and makes a great show where it grows."); September 28, 1858 ("Liatris done, apparently some time.").See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Liatris

Perfect dog-days without interruption. See July 30, 1856 (“This is a perfect dog-day. The atmosphere thick, mildewy, cloudy. It is difficult to dry anything. The sun is obscured, yet we expect no rain”)

Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow there. See July 7, 1856 ("The snake-head arethusa is now abundant amid the cranberries”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snakemouth Orchid

Far in the broad wet meadows, on the hummocks and ridges, these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over. See July 18, 1852 ("The petals of the rhexia have a beautiful clear purple with a violet tinge."); and 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.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Rhexia Virginica (meadow-beauty)

Far in the meadows

 these bright beds of rhexia 

seen only by birds.

Thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years.

July 31. 

Thursday. P. M. — To Decodon Pond. 

Erigeron Canadensis, some time. Alisma mostly gone to seed. Thoroughwort, several days. Penthorum, a good while. 

Trichostema has now for some time been springing up in the fields, giving out its aromatic scent when bruised, and I see one ready to open. 

For a morning or two I have noticed dense crowds of little tender whitish parasol toadstools, one inch or more in diameter, and two inches high or more, with simple plaited wheels, about the pump platform; first fruit of this dog-day weather. 

Measured a Rudbeckia hirta flower; more than three inches and three eighths in diameter. 

As I am going across to Bear Garden Hill, I see much white Polygala sanguinea with the red in A. Wheeler's meadow (next to Potter's). 

Also much of the Bartonia tenella, which has been out some days at least, five rods from ditch, and three from Potter's fence. 

Went through Potter's Aster Radula swamp this dog-day afternoon. As I make my way amid rank weeds still wet with the dew, the air filled with a decaying musty scent and the z-ing of small locusts, I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years.

Some late rue leaves on a broken twig have turned all a uniform clear purple. 

How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill ! The berries are large, for no drought has shrunk them. They are very abundant this year to compensate for the want of them the last. The children should grow rich if they can get eight cents a quart for blackberries, as they do. 

Again I am attracted by the hoary, as it were misty morning light on the base of the upper leaves of the velvety Pycnanthemum incanum. It is the most interesting of this genus here. 

The smooth sumach is pretty generally crimson-berried on the Knoll, and its lower leaves are scarlet-tipped (though there are some blossoms yet), but the Rhus copallina there is not yet out. 

See dense fields of the great epilobium now in its prime, like soldiers in the meadow, resounding with the hum of bees. The butterflies are seen on the pearly everlasting, etc., etc. 

Hieracium paniculatum by Gerardia quercifolia path in woods under Cliffs, two or three days. 

Elodea two and a half feet high, how long? The flowers at 3 p. m. nearly shut, cloudy as it is. Yet the next day, later, I saw some open, I think. 

Another short-tailed shrew dead in the wood-path.

Near Well Meadow, hear the distant scream of a hawk, apparently anxious about her young, and soon a large apparent hen-hawk (?) comes and alights on the very top of the highest pine there, within gunshot, and utters its angry scream. This a sound of the season when they probably are taking their first (?) flights. 

See yellow Bethlehem-star still. 

As I look out through the woods westward there, I see, sleeping and gleaming through the stagnant, misty, glaucous dog-day air, i. e. blue mist, the smooth silvery surface of Fair Haven Pond. There is a singular charm about it in this setting. The surface has a dull, gleaming polish on it, though draped in this glaucous mist. 

The Solidago gigantea (?), three-ribbed, out a long time at Walden shore by railroad, more perfectly out than any solidago I have seen. I will call this S. gigantea, yet it has a yellowish-green stem, slightly pubescent above, and leaves slightly rough to touch above, rays small, about fifteen.

Mine must be the Aster Radula (if any) of Gray, yet the scales of the involucre are not appressed, but rather sub-squamose, nor is it rare. Pursh describes it, or the Radula, as white-flowered, and mentions several closely allied species. 

Wade through the northernmost Andromeda Pond. Decodon not nearly out there. Do I not see some kind of sparrow about the shore, with yellow beneath? Mountain cranberries apparently full grown, many at least.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 31, 1856

Trichostema has now for some time been springing up in the fields, giving out its aromatic scent. See Jujy 31, 1854 ("Blue-curls."); July 11, 1853 ("The aromatic trichostema now springing up"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue-Curls

This dog-day afternoon . . .  the air filled with a decaying musty scent and the z-ing of small locusts. See July 31, 1855 ("Our dog-days seem to be turned to a rainy season.") July 31, 1859 ("It is emphatically one of the dog-days. A dense fog, not clearing off till we are far on our way, and the clouds (which did not let in any sun all day) were the dog-day fog and mist, which threatened no rain. A muggy but comfortable day."); July 31, 1860 ("Decidedly dog-days, and a strong musty scent, not to be wondered at after the copious rains and the heat of yesterday.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Locust, Dogdayish Days and August 2, 1859 ("That fine z-ing of locusts in the grass which I have heard for three or four days is an August sound.")

Thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years. See August 7, 1854 ("I am not so much reminded of former years, as of existence prior to years.”) See also Farewell, my friend

Another short-tailed shrew dead in the wood-path. See July 12, 1856 (“I have found them thus three or four times before.”)

July 31.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 31

Thoughts of autumn and

the memory of past years

occupy my mind.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Thoughts of autumn

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

A hundred crows in a great rambling flock.

Fresh election-cake with peppered surface

October 29.

Carried my owl to the hill again. Had to shake him out of the box, for he did not go of his own accord. There he stood on the grass, at first bewildered, with his horns pricked up and looking toward me. In this strong light the pupils of his eyes suddenly. contracted and the iris expanded till they were two great brazen orbs with a centre spot merely. His attitude expressed astonishment more than anything. I was obliged to toss him up a little that he might feel his wings, and then he flapped away low and heavily to a hickory on the hillside twenty rods off. ...

I see many aphides very thick and long-tailed on the alders. 

Soapwort gentian and pasture thistle still. 

There are many fresh election-cake toadstools amid the pitch pines there, and also very regular higher hemispherical ones with a regularly warted or peppered surface.

As I pass Merrick’s pasture, I see and count about a hundred crows advancing in a great rambling flock from the southeast and crossing the river on high, and cawing.

When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs. The scent of their decay is pleasant to me. 

I buy no lot in the cemetery which my townsmen have just consecrated with a poem and an auction, paying so much for a choice. Here is room enough for me.

The swamp white oak has a fine, firm, leathery leaf with a silver under side, half of them now turned up. Oaks are now fairly brown; very few still red. 

Returning, I scare up a blue heron from the bathing rock this side the Island. It is whitened by its droppings, in great splotches a foot or more wide. He has evidently frequented it to watch for fish there.

Also a flock of blackbirds fly eastward over my head from the top of an oak, either red-wings or grackles.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 29, 1855

My owl. See October 28, 1855 ("Sealing squietly up behind the hemlock, though from the windward, I look carefully around it, and, to my surprise, see the owl still sitting there. So I spring round quickly, with my arm outstretched, and catch it in my hand."). See also A Book of the Seasons, , by Henry Thoreau, the Screech Owl


Soapwort gentian and pasture thistle still. See October 11, 1856 ("A pasture thistle with many fresh flowers and bees on it. ")' See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Soapwort Gentian; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles

I see and count about a hundred crows advancing in a great rambling flock from the southeast and crossing the river on high, and cawing.  See October 29, 1857 ("A flock of about eighty crows flies ramblingly over toward the sowing, cawing and loitering and making a great ado, apparently about nothing."); November 1, 1853 ("As I return, I notice crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.")

The cemetery which my townsmen have just consecrated. See note to October 30, 1855 ("Going to the new cemetery,")

Election cake toadstools. See October 20, 1856 ("Amid the young pitch pines . . . a great many brownish-yellow (and some pink) election-cake fungi . . .”); July 29, 1853 (“ . . .small, umbrella-shaped (with sharp cones), shining and glossy yellow fungi, like an election cake  . .”). See also Concord: A Sense of Place, October 20, 2015, Election-cake Fungus Mystery.

Election Cake dates back to Colonial America and the young Republic.  Bakers made this “muster" cake to feed militia members in the Colonial era during military training days. After the American Revolution, it evolved into an Election Cake, one prepared for town hall meetings and community celebrations to encourage eligible voter attendance.  ~ owl bakery

I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. See  October 16, 1857 ("How beautifully they die, making cheerfully their annual contribution to the soil! They fall to rise again; as if they knew that it was not one annual deposit alone that made this rich mould in which pine trees grow. They live in the soil whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that spring from it. "); October 20, 1853 ("Merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting their graves, whispering all through the woods about it. They that waved so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! So they troop to their graves, light and frisky. They are about to add a leaf's breadth to the depth of the soil. We are all the richer for their decay.").

I love to wander

over the leaves in their graves

returning to dust.

When the leaves fall

I love to wander and muse 

here is room for me.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A hundred crows in a great rambling flock.

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

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