A Book of the Seasons: the Bellworts

 

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Observe all kinds of coincidences,

as what kinds of birds come with what flowers.

Henry Thoreau

April 18, 1852

The single modest-colored flower gracefully drooping,

neat, with a fugacious, richly spiced fragrance, facing the ground . . .

a beautiful sight, a pleasing discovery,  the first of the season. . .

When you turn up the drooping flower,

its petals make a perfect geometrical figure, a six-pointed star.

May 16, 1852

Sessile-leaved bellwort

  Avesong, April 24, 2023

May 3. P. M. – Ride to Flint's Pond to look for Uvularia perfoliata [see May 30, 1857 ] . . . See no signs of the Uvularia perfoliata yet; apparently will not bloom within ten days . . .  In the woods near the Uvularia perfoliata, see and hear a new bird to me . . . At first it was silent, and I took it for the common pewee, but . . . It surprised me by singing in a novel and powerful and rich strain. Yet it may be the white-eyed [solitary] vireo (which I do not know), if it comes so early. May 3, 1858

May 6. Uvularia sessilifolia just begun. May 6, 1853

May 11.  Uvularia perfoliata out in rain; say, then, the 9th. Just after plucking it I perceived what I call the meadow fragrance, though in the woods; but I afterward found that this flower was peculiarly fragrant, and its fragrance like that, so it was probably this which I had perceived. S. was reminded of the lily-of-the-valley by it.  May 11, 1859

May 13.  Uvularias, amid the dry tree-tops near the azaleas. May 13, 1854

May 13.  P. M. – To Island Uvularia sessilifolia is well out in Island woods, opposite Bath Rock; how long? May 13, 1858

May 13.  At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts. Uvularia sessilifolia abundant, how long?  May 13, 1860

May 14. The Uvularia sessilifolio, a drooping flower with tender stems and leaves; the latter curled so as to show their under sides hanging about the stems, as if shrinking from the cold .May 14, 1852

May 16.  The sessile-leaved bellwort, with three or four delicate pale-green leaves with reflexed edges, on a tender-looking stalk, the single modest-colored flower gracefully drooping, neat, with a fugacious, richly spiced fragrance, facing the ground, the dry leaves, as if unworthy to face the heavens. It is a beautiful sight, a pleasing discovery,  the first of the season, -- growing in a little straggling company, in damp woods or swamps. When you turn up the drooping flower, its petals make a perfect geometrical figure, a six-pointed star. May 16, 1852

May 16.  P. M. – To Uvularia perfoliata at Flint's Pond, which did not show itself at all on the 3d, is now conspicuous, and one is open but will not shed pollen before to-morrow. It has shot up about ten inches in one case and bloomed within thirteen days!! May 16, 1858

May 30.   By the path near the northeast shore of Flint's Pond, just before reaching the wall by the brook, I see what I take to be an uncommonly large Uvularia sessilifolia flower, but, looking again, am surprised to find it the Uvularia perfoliata, which I have not found hereabouts before. It is a taller and much more erect plant than the other, with a larger flower, methinks. It is considerably past its prime and probably began with the other.  May 30, 1857 

June 2. [climbing Monadnock] Uvularia grandiflora, not long begun to bloom. June 2, 1858

June 3.  Saw the Uvularia perfoliata, perfoliate bellwort, in Worcester near the hill; an abundance of mountain laurel on the hills, now budded to blossom and the fresh lighter growth contrasting with the dark green; an abundance of very large checkerberries, or partridge berries, as Bigelow calls them, on Hasnebumskit. June 3, 1851

June 14. Walk to Hermitage Woods with Sophia and aunts.  Uvularia perfoliata very common there; now out of bloom.  June 14, 1856

July 25. Large-flowered bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), in fruit. [The Maine Woods] July 25, 1857

August 22. Edward Hoar . . . says he found the Uvularia perfoliata on the Stow road, he thinks within Concord bounds. August 22, 1857

August 26.  The Uvularia sessilifolia is for the most part turned yellow, with large green fruit, or even withered and brown. August 26, 1859

August 30.  The plants now decayed and decaying and withering are those early ones which grow in wet or shady places, as hellebore, skunk-cabbage, the two (and perhaps three) smilacinas, uvularias, polygonatum, medeola, Senecio aureus (except radical leaves), and many brakes and sarsaparillas. August 30, 1859

September 6. The sessile-leaved bellwort is yellow, green, and brown, all together or separately. September 6, 1854

September 22. Sophia has in her herbarium and has found in Concord these which I have not seen this summer:  . . . Uvularia perfoliata, Bigelow says May. September 22, 1852

October 22. It is just about nine miles, as I walk, from here around Flint’s Pond . . . I saw some hickory sprouts above the perfoliate bellwort near the pond. October 22, 1857

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bellworts

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 ©  2009-2023

* Sessile-leaved bellwort (Uvularia sessilifolia )is the most widespread and common bellwort in New England, inhabiting deciduous and mixed evergreen deciduous forests, woodlands and edges throughout. The sessile (without a stalk but not perfoliate) leaves distinguish this species from large-flowered bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora) and perfoliate bellwort (Uvularia perfoliata).  

*Large-flowered bellwort is distributed in rich, moist, deciduous forests in western New England. 

*Perfoliate bellwort becomes increasingly rare in northern New England, and is absent in Maine. The name refers to the way the stem seems to pierce through the leaf blade. Large-flowered bellwort also has perfoliate leaves.~ GoBotany

(Thoreau’s only references to Concord occurrence of the perfoliate bellwort  are second-hand. See August 22, 1857,  and  September 22, 1852 ) ~ Ray Angelo, Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts)

I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time

August 26. 

The dust is laid, the streets washed, the leaves — the first ripe crop — fallen, owing to yesterday's copious rain. It is clearer weather, and the creak of the crickets is more distinct, just as the air is clearer. 

The trees look greener and fresher, not only because their leaves are washed and erected, but because they have for the most part shed their yellow and sere leaves. 

The front-rank polygonum is now perhaps in its prime. Where it forms an island in the river it is surmounted in the middle or highest part by the P. hydropiperoides. 

P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill. 

Elder-berries have fairly begun to be ripe, as also the Cornus sericea berries, and the dull-reddish leaves of the last begin to be conspicuous. 

The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound.

 Potato vines are generally browning and rank. Roman wormwood prevails over them; also erechthites, in new and boggy ground, and butterweed. These lusty natives prevail in spite of the weeding hoe, and take possession of the field at last. Potato vines have taken a veil of wormwood. 

The barn-yard grass and various panics (sanguinale, capillare, and bottle-grass) now come forward with a rush and take possession of the cultivated fields, partly abandoned for the present by the farmer and gardener. 

How singular that the Polygonum aviculare should grow so commonly and densely about back doors where the earth is trodden, bordering on paths ! Hence properly called door-grass. I am not aware that it prevails in any other places. 

The pontederia leaves are already slightly imbrowned, though the flowers are still abundant. 

The river is a little cooled by yesterday's rain, and considerable heart-leaf (the leaves mainly) is washed up. 

I begin to think of a thicker coat and appreciate the warmth of the sun. I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time. At any rate, they surprise me. There may be cool veins in the air now, any day. 

Now for dangle-berries. 

Also Viburnum nudum fruit has begun. 

I saw a cherry-bird peck from the middle of its upright (vertical) web on a bush one of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders within a rod of me. It dropped to the ground, and then the bird picked it up. It left a hole or rent in the middle of the web. The spider cunningly spreads his net for feebler insects, and then takes up his post in the centre, but perchance a passing bird picks him from his conspicuous station. 

I perceived for the first time, this afternoon, in one place, a slight mouldy scent. There are very few fungi in a dry summer like this.

The Uvularia sessilifolia is for the most part turned yellow, with large green fruit, or even withered and brown. 

Some medeola is quite withered. Perhaps they are somewhat frost-bitten. 

I see a goldfinch eating the seeds of the coarse barn yard grass, perched on it. It then goes off with a cool twitter. 

Notice arrowhead leaves very curiously eaten by some insect. They are dotted all over in lines with small roundish white scales, — which your nail will remove, and then a scar is seen beneath, — as if some juice had exuded from each puncture and then hardened. 

The first fall rain is a memorable occasion, when the river is raised and cooled, and the first crop of sere and yellow leaves falls. The air is cleared; the dog- days are over; sun-sparkles are seen on water; crickets sound more distinct; saw-grass reveals its spikes in the shorn fields; sparrows and bobolinks fly in flocks more and more. Farmers feel encouraged about their late potatoes and corn. Mill-wheels that have rested for want of water begin to revolve again. Meadow-haying is over. 

The first significant event (for a long time) was the frost of the 17th. That was the beginning of winter, the first summons to summer. Some of her forces succumbed to it. The second event was the rain of yesterday. 

My neighbor told me yesterday that about four inches of rain had fallen, for he sent his man for a pail that was left in the garden during the rain, and there was about four inches depth of water in it. I inquired if the pail had upright sides. "No," he said, "it was flaring ! ! " However, according to another, there was full four inches in a tub. 

Leersia or cut-grass in prime at Potter's holes. 

That first frost on the 17th was the first stroke of winter aiming at the scalp of summer. Like a stealthy and insidious aboriginal enemy, it made its assault just before daylight in some deep and far-away hollow and then silently withdrew. Few have seen the drooping plants, but the news of this stroke circulates rapidly through the village. Men communicate it with a tone of warning. The foe is gone by sunrise, but some fearful neighbors who have visited their potato and cranberry patches report this stroke. The implacable and irresistible foe to all this tender greenness is not far off, nor can we be sure, any month in the year, that some scout from his low camp may not strike down the tenderest of the children of summer. 

The earliest and latest frosts are not distinguishable. This foe will go on steadily increasing in strength and boldness, till his white camps will be pitched over all the fields, and we shall be compelled to take refuge in our strongholds, with some of summer's withered spoils stored up in barns, maintaining ourselves and our herds on the seeds and roots and withered grass which we have embarned. Men in anticipation of this time have been busily collecting and curing the green blades all the country over, while they have still some nutriment in them. Cattle and horses have been dragging homeward their winter's food.

A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum, Hubbard's meadow-side, Drosera Flat, not out.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 26, 1859


Elder-berries have fairly begun to be ripe. See note to August 23, 1856 (Elder-berries, now looking purple, are weighing down the bushes along fences by their abundance. ")
  
Cornus sericea berries See August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river. .”)

The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound. See August 23, 1857 ("The mole cricket nowadays"); August 22, 1856 ("The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore."); September 11, 1855 ("Loudly the mole cricket creaks by mid-afternoon.")

Viburnum nudum fruit has begun. See August 25, 1854 ("The Viburnum nudum berries, in various stages, — green, deep-pink, and also deep-blue, not purple or ripe, — are very abundant at Shadbush Meadow. They appear to be now in their prime and are quite sweet, but have a large seed. Interesting for the various colors on the same bush and in the same cluster.")

One of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders. See September 12, 1858 ("They are the yellow-backed spider, commonly large and stout but of various sizes. I count sixty-four such webs there, and in each case the spider occupies the centre, head downward.")

A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum. See August 28, 1860 ("The Lycopodium inundatum common by Harrington's mud-hole, Ministerial Swamp.") 

[Northern bog-clubmoss is by far the most common species of bog-clubmoss in New England.  The tops of the erect shoots are distinctively widened. Its diminutive size, thin horizontal shoots, and entire trophophylls (sterile leaves) quickly distinguish most populations; it frequently occurs in the absence of other species or hybrids. ~ GoBotany]

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums

Youn fresh-expanding, oak leaves form a leafy mist throughout the forest.

May 11. 

Wednesday. 

Golden robin yesterday.

Fir-balsam well out in the rain; so say 9th. 

P. M. — To Flint's Pond. 

Arum triphyllum out. Almost every one has a little fly or two concealed within. One of the handsomest- formed plants when in flower. 

Sorrel out in rain, apparently a day or two, — say 9th. 

A blue heron flies away from the shore of the pond. 

Scirpus planifolius in bloom on Smith's wooded hill, side of Saw Mill Brook. 

A partridge-nest, with eleven fresh eggs, at foot of a chestnut, one upon another. It is quite a deep cavity amid the leaves, with some feathers of the bird in it.

Young, or fresh-expanding, oak leaves are very handsome now, showing their colors. It is a leafy mist throughout the forest. 

May 12, 2017

Uvularia perfoliata out in rain; say, then, the 9th. Just after plucking it I perceived what I call the meadow fragrance, though in the woods; but I afterward found that this flower was peculiarly fragrant, and its fragrance like that, so it was probably this which I had perceived. S. was reminded of the lily-of-the-valley by it. 

The witch-hazel has one of the broadest leaves now.

In the path in Stow's wood-lot, I find apparently Thaspium aureum (Zizia aurea), which will open the first fair day. Shows quite yellow now. 

Found in the path in the woods by the Mill Brook ditch, Flint's Pond, dead, the Coluber punctatus, 13 1/4 inches long, but no row of spots in middle of abdomen. The head above blackish with a blackish ring behind the yellow. Tail 3 inches long; breadth of body 5/16 ; plates 162; scales 55. Above, uniform glossy slate-color, with a yellowish-white band across the occiput; the head above blackish, and a blackish band close behind the yellowish one. Beneath, yellow or buff (whitish under head), with a row of small slanting black spots, one on each side of each abdominal plate except the first 3/4 inch behind the head. In the midst of the path in the woods. I admired the iridescence from its glossy belly. It differs from Storer's C. punctatus, for it is not brown above, nor "reddish yellow" beneath, and has no row of spots in middle of the abdomen. 

In that first thunder-shower, the evening of the 9th, the grass evidently erected itself and grew darker, as  it were instantaneously. Was it the effect of electricity in the air? It looked very differently from what it had ten minutes before.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 11, 1859

Golden robin yesterday. See. May 10, 1853 (“Hear higher the clear whistle of the oriole. New days, then, have come, ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee, and now made perfect by the twittering of the kingbird and the whistle of the oriole amid the elms, which are but just beginning to leaf out, thinking of his nest there, -. . .The warbling vireo promised warmer days, but the oriole ushers in summer heats.”); May 10, 1858 ("The oriole is seen darting like a bright flash with clear whistle from one tree-top to another over the street.”)

Arum triphyllum out. See May 1, 1857 ("Plucked the Arum triphyllum, three inches high, with its acrid corm.”);  May 19, 1851 ("Find the Arum triphyllum . .   in Conant's Swamp.")

Young, or fresh-expanding, oak leaves are very handsome now, showing their colors. It is a leafy mist throughout the forest.  See May 15, 1854 ("The aspect of oak and other woods at a distance is somewhat like that of a very thick and reddish or yellowish mist about the evergreens. . . . Oak leaves are as big as a mouse's ear.”); May 15, 1860 ("Looking from the Cliffs through the haze, the deciduous trees are a mist of leaflets.”);  May 18, 1851 ("The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers"); May 23, 1860 ("The quarter-grown red oak leaves between you and the sun, how yellow-green! "); May 26, 1857 ("Very interesting now are the red tents of expanding- oak leaves, as you go through sprout-lands, — the crimson velvet of the black oak and the more pinkish white oak. The salmon and pinkish-red canopies or umbrellas of the white oak")

Uvularia perfoliata out in rain; say, then, the 9th. See September 22, 1852 ("Sophia has in her herbarium and has found in Concord these which I have not seen this summer ...Uvularia perfoliata”);  May 30, 1857 ("By the path near the northeast shore of Flint's Pond, just before reaching the wall by the brook, I . . .am surprised to find ... the Uvularia perfoliata, which I have not found hereabouts before.  . . . It is considerably past its prime”); May 3, 1858 ("Ride to Flint's Pond to look for Uvularia perfoliata. ... It apparently will not bloom within ten days”); May 16, 1858 (“The Uvularia perfoliata, which did not show itself at all on the 3d, is now conspicuous, and one is open but will not shed pollen before to-morrow. It has shot up about ten inches in one case and bloomed within thirteen days!!”)

Just after plucking it I perceived what I call the meadow fragrance,  but I afterward found that this flower was peculiarly fragrant. See May 6, 1855 ("that unaccountable fugacious fragrance, as of all flowers,”);  May 15, 1856 ("Perceive some of that delicious meadow fragrance coming over the railroad causeway”); May 27, 1855 ("The meadow fragrance to-day”); May 27, 1856 ("perceived the meadow fragrance”); May 27, 1857 ("I perceived that rare meadow fragrance on the 25th.”); June 3, 1860 ("I perceive the meadow fragrance.”)

The Coluber punctatus [ringneck snake],  uniform glossy slate-color above, with a yellowish-white band across the occiput; the head above blackish, and a blackish band close behind the yellowish one. Beneath, yellow or buff (whitish under head), with a row of small slanting black spots. Nnot brown above, nor "reddish yellow" beneath,. Compare and see note to May 1, 1859 (“a little snake . . . uniformly brown (or reddish-brown) above except a yellowish ring on the occiput, the head also lighter than the body; beneath vermilion, with apparently a row of light dots along each side.”)

Monadnock as an arctic isle in the sky.

June 2. 

June 2, 2018

8.30 A. M. — Start for Monadnock. 

Between Shirley Village and Lunenburg, I notice, in a meadow on the right hand, close to the railroad, the Kalmia glauca in bloom, as we are whirled past. The conductor says that he has it growing in his garden. 

Blake joins me at Fitchburg. Between Fitchburg and Troy saw an abundance of wild red cherry, now apparently in prime, in full bloom, especially in burnt lands and on hillsides, a small but cheerful lively white bloom. 

Arrived at Troy Station at 11.5 and shouldered our knapsacks, steering northeast to the mountain, some four miles off, —its top. It is a pleasant hilly road, leading past a few farmhouses, where you already begin to snuff the mountain, or at least up-country air. 

By the roadside I plucked, now apparently in prime, the Ribes Cynosbati, rather downy leaved, and, near by, the same with smooth berries. I noticed, too, 'the Salix lucida, by the roadside there on high land; the S. rostrata, etc., were common. 

Almost without interruption we had the mountain in sight before us, — its sublime gray mass — that antique, brownish-gray, Ararat color. Probably these crests of the earth are for the most part of one color in all lands, that gray color of antiquity, which nature loves; color of unpainted wood, weather-stain, time-stain; not glaring nor gaudy; the color of all roofs, the color of things that endure, and the color that wears well; color of Egyptian ruins, of mummies and all antiquity; baked in the sun, done brown. 

Methought I saw the same color with which Ararat and Caucasus and all earih’s brows are stained, which was mixed in antiquity and receives a new coat every century; not scarlet, like the crest of the bragging cock, but that hard, enduring gray; a terrene sky-color; solidified air with a tinge of earth. [Best view of mountain about two and a half miles this side of summit.] 

The red elder was in full bloom by the road, apparently in prime.

We left the road at a schoolhouse, and, crossing a meadow, began to ascend gently through very rocky pastures. Previously an old man, a mile back, who lived on a hilltop on the road, pointed out the upper corner of his pasture as a short way up. Said he had not been up for seven years and, looking at our packs, asked, “Are you going to carry them up?” “Well,” said he, with a tone half of pity and lIalf regret, adding, “ I shall never go up again.” 

Here, at the base, by the course of a rocky rill, where we paused in the shade, in moist ground, I saw the Tiarella cordifolia, abundant and apparently in prime, with its white spike sometimes a foot and more high; also the leaves of the Geranium Robertianum, emitting their peculiar scent, with the radical reddish tinge, not yet budded. The cress in the water there was quite agreeable to our taste, and methinks would be good to eat fresh with bread. 

The neighboring hills began to sink, and entering the wood we soon passed Fassett's shanty, — he so busily at work inside that he did not see us, – and we took our dinner by the rocky brook-side in the woods just above. 

A dozen people passed us early in the afternoon, while we sat there, men and women on their way down from the summit, this suddenly very pleasant day after a louring one having attracted them. We met a man (apparently an Indian or Canadian half-breed) and a boy, with guns, who had been up after pigeons but only killed five crows. 

Thereabouts first I noticed the Ribes prostratum, abundantly in bloom, apparently in prime, with its pretty erect racemes of small flowers, sometimes purplish with large leaves. 

There, too, the Trillium erythrocarpum, now in prime, was conspicuous, – three white lanceolate waved-edged petals with a purple base. This the handsomest flower of the mountain, coexten sive with the wooded sides. 

Also the Viburnum lantanoides, apparently in prime, with its large and showy white outer florets, reminding me by its marginal flowering of the tree-cranberry, coextensive with last; and Uvularia grandiflora, not long begun to bloom. 

Red elder-berry not open, apparently, there; and Amelanchier Canadensis var. Botryapium not long in bloom. 

Having risen above the dwarfish woods (in which mountain-ash was very common), which reached higher up along this ravine than elsewhere, and nearly all the visitors having descended, we proceeded to find a place for and to prepare our camp at mid-afternoon. We wished it to be near water, out of the way of the wind, which was northwest, and of the path, and also near to spruce trees for a bed. (There is a good place if you would be near the top within a stone's throw of the summit, on the north side, under some spruce trees.) 

We chose a sunken yard in a rocky plateau on the southeast side of the mountain, perhaps half a mile from the summit, by the path, a rod and a half wide by many more in length, with a mossy and bushy floor about five or six feet beneath the general level, where a dozen black spruce trees grew, though the surrounding rock was generally bare. There was a pretty good spring within a dozen rods, and the western wall shelved over a foot or two. 

We slanted two scraggy spruce trees, long since bleached, from the western wall, and, cutting many spruce boughs with our knives, made a thick bed and walls on the two sides to keep out the wind. Then, putting several poles transversely across our two rafters, we covered [them] with a thick roof of spruce twigs, like shingles. The spruce, though harsh for a bed, was close at hand, we cutting away one tree to make room. 

We crawled under the low eaves of this roof, about eighteen inches high, and our extremities projected about a foot. Having left our packs here and made all ready for the night, we went up to the summit to see the sun set. 

Our path lay through a couple of small swamps and then up the rocks. 

Some forty or fifty rods below the very apex southeast, or quite on the top of the mountain, I saw a little bird flit out from beneath a rock close by the path on the left of it, where there were only very few scattered dwarf black spruce about, and, looking, I found a nest with three eggs. 

It was the Fringilla hyemalis, which soon disappeared around a projecting rock. It was near by a conspicuous spruce, six or eight feet high, on the west edge of a sort of hollow, where a vista opened south over the precipice, and the path ascended at once more steeply. The nest was sunk in the ground by the side of a tuft of grass, and was pretty deep, made of much fine dry grass or sedge (?) and lined with a little of a delicate bluish hair-like fibre (?) (q.v.) two or three inches long. 

The eggs were three, of a regular oval form, faint bluish white, sprinkled with fine pale-brown dots, in two of the three condensed into a ring about the larger end. They had apparently just begun to develop. The nest and tuft were covered by a projecting rock. 

Brewer says that only one nest is known to naturalists. 

We saw many of these birds flitting about the summit, perched on the rocks and the dwarf spruce, and disappearing behind the rocks. It is the prevailing bird now up there, i.e. on the summit. 

They are commonly said to go to the fur countries to breed, though Wilson says that some breed in the Alleghanies. The New York Reports make them breed on the mountains of Oswego County and the Catskills.” 

This was a quite interesting discovery. They probably are never seen in the surrounding low grounds at this season. 

The ancestors of this bird had evidently perceived on their flight northward that here was a small piece of arctic region, containing all the conditions they require, — coolness and suitable food, etc., etc., –and so for how long have builded here. For ages they have made their home here with the Arenaria Graenlandica and Potentilla tridentata. They discerned arctic isles sprinkled in our southern sky.

I did not see any of them below the rocky and generally bare portion of the mountain. It finds here the same conditions as in the north of Maine and in the fur countries, – Labrador mosses, etc. 

Now that the season is advanced, migrating birds have gone to the extreme north or gone to the mountain tops. 

By its color it harmonized with the gray and brownish-gray rocks. 

We felt that we were so much nearer to perennial spring and winter. 

I observed rabbit's dung commonly, quite to the top and all over the rocky portion, and where they had browsed the bushes. 

For the last fifteen or twenty rods the ground between the rocks is pretty thickly clothed or carpeted with mountain cranberry and Potentilla tridentata, only the former as yet slightly budded, but much lower than this the mountain cranberry is not common. The former grows also in mere seams on the nearly upright sides of rocks, and occasionally I found some of last year's cranberries on the latter, which were an agreeable acid. These were the prevailing plants of a high order on the very summit. 

There was also on the same ground considerable fine grass, and radical leaves of a sericocarpus-like aster (?), – I saw some withered heads, – springing up commonly, and a little (hardly yet conspicuously budded except in the warmest places) Arenaria Granlandica in dense tufts, succulent. 

There were a few very dwarfish black spruce there, and a very little dry moss, and, on the rocks, many of that small leather-colored lichen, and Umbilicaria pustulata, and the two common (?) kinds of cladonia, white and green, between them.

Scarcely, if at all, lower than the above-named plants, grew the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, also Pyrus arbutifolia, very minute and but just budded, and minute mountain-ashes, a few inches high only. From these one may judge what plants, among others, grow far north. 

We heard the hylodes peeping from a rain-water pool a little below the summit toward night. 

As it was quite hazy, we could not see the shadow of the mountain well, and so returned just before the sun set to our camp. We lost the path coming down, for nothing is easier than to lose your way here, where so little trail is left upon the rocks, and the different rocks and ravines are so much alike. Perhaps no other equal area is so bewildering in this respect as a rocky mountain summit, though it has so conspicuous a central point. 

Notwithstanding the newspaper and egg-shell left by visitors, these parts of nature are still peculiarly unhandselled and untracked. The natural terraces of rock are the steps of this temple, and it is the same whether it rises above the desert or a New England village. 

Even the inscribed rocks are as solemn as most ancient gravestones, and nature reclaims them with bog and lichens. They reminded me of the grave and pass of Ben Waddi (?). These sculptors seemed to me to court such alliance with the grave as they who put their names over tombstones along the highway. One, who was probably a blacksmith, had sculptured the emblems of his craft, an anvil and hammer, beneath his name. Apparently a part of the regular outfit of mountain-climbers is a hammer and cold-chisel, and perhaps they allow themselves a supply of garlic also. Certainly you could not hire a stone-cutter to do so much engraving for less than several thousand dollars. But no Old Mortality will ever be caught renewing these epitaphs. It reminds what kinds of steeps do climb the false pretenders to fame, whose chief exploit is the carriage of the tools with which to inscribe their names. For speaking epitaphs they are, and the mere name is a sufficient revelation of the character. They are all of one trade, -- stone cutters, defacers of mountain-tops. “Charles & Lizzie!” Charles carried the sledge-hammer, and Lizzie the cold chisel. Some have carried up a paint-pot, and painted their names on the rocks. 

We returned to our camp and got our tea in our sunken yard. While one went for water to the spring, the other kindled a fire. 

The whole rocky part of the mountain, except the extreme summit, is strewn with the relics of spruce trees, a dozen or fifteen feet long, and long since dead and bleached, so that there is plenty of dry fuel at hand. We sat out on the brink of the rocky plateau near our camp, taking our tea in the twilight, and found it quite dry and warm there, though you would not have thought of sitting out at evening in the surrounding valleys. 

It was evidently warmer and drier there than below. I have often perceived the warm air high on the sides of hills late into the night, while the valleys were filled with a cold damp night air, as with water, and here the air was warmer and drier the greater part of the night. We perceived no dew there this or the next night. 

This was our parlor and supper-room; in another direction was our wash-room. 

The chewink sang before night, and this, as I have before observed, is a very common bird on mountain-tops. It seems to love a cool atmosphere, and sometimes lingers quite late with us. And the wood thrush, indefinitely far or near, a little more distant and unseen, as great poets are. 

Early in the evening the nighthawks were heard to spark and boom over these bare gray rocks, and such was our serenade at first as we lay on our spruce bed. We were left alone with the nighthawks. 

These with drawn bare rocks must be a very suitable place for them to lay their eggs, and their dry and unmusical, yet supramundane and spirit-like, voices and sounds gave fit expression to this rocky mountain solitude. It struck the very key-note of the stern, gray, barren solitude. It was a thrumming of the mountain’s rocky chords; strains from the music of Chaos, such as were heard when the earth was rent and these rocks heaved up. Thus they went sparking and booming, while we were courting the first access of sleep, and I could imagine their dainty limping flight, circling over the kindred rock, with a spot of white quartz in their wings. 

No sound could be more in harmony with that scenery. 

Though common below, it seemed peculiarly proper here. But ere long the nighthawks were stilled, and we heard only the sound of our companion's breathing or of a bug in our spruce roof. I thought I heard once faintly the barking of a dog far down under the mountain, and my companion thought he heard a bullfrog. 

A little after 1 A. M., I woke and found that the moon had risen, and heard some little bird near by sing a short strain of welcome to it, somewhat song-sparrow-like. But every sound is a little strange there, as if you were in Labrador. Before dawn the nighthawks commenced their sounds again, and these sounds were as good as a clock to us, telling how the night got on.

H.. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 2, 1858


Thoreau visited Monadnock on four occasions: a solo overnight on the summit in 1844, a quick day-hike in  September 1852, and more extended stays in 1858 and 1860:  August 4 1860, August 5, 1860. August 6, 1860, August 7, 1860, August 8, 1860,  and  August 9, 1860

The ground between the rocks is pretty thickly clothed or carpeted with mountain cranberry and Potentilla tridentata. Compare September 7, 1852 (“In one little hollow between the rocks grow blueberries, choke-berries, bunch-berries, red cherries, wild currants (Ribes prostratum, with the berry the odor of skunk-cabbage, but a not quite disagreeable wild flavor), a few raspberries still, holly berries, mountain cranberries (Vaccinium Vitis-Idaea), all close together. The little soil on the summit between the rocks was covered with the Potentilla tridentata, now out of bloom, the prevailing plant at the extreme summit. Mountain-ash berries also.”)

Arctic isles sprinkled in our southern sky.  Monadnock rises 2,000 feet above its surrounding terrain and stands, at 3,165 feet, nearly 1,000 feet higher than any mountain peak within 30 miles .~ wikipedia. The internet credits the ecological term “sky island” as first introduced in 1943 by writer Natt N. Dodge’s in the Arizona Highways magazine.

Now that the season is advanced, migrating birds have gone to the extreme north or gone to the mountain tops. Dark-eyed juncos   have long been observed migrating through the eastern part of Massachusetts toward the mountains of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire and on into Canada, with a strong contingent stopping to nest in the higher elevations of western Massachusetts. Mass Audubon

June 2. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 2

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

A very large black snake I thought was preparing to strike at me

May 16

A. M. – Up Assabet. 

Aralia nudicaulis at Island. The leaf-stalks are often eaten off, probably by some quadruped. 

The flower-buds of the Cornus florida are five eighths of an inch in diameter. 

The Salix lucida will hardly bloom within two days. The S. Torreyana catkins are so reddish that at a little distance it looks some what like the common black cherry now leafing. 

A hummingbird yesterday came into the next house and was caught. Flew about our parlor to-day and tasted Sophia's flowers. In some lights you saw none of the colors of its throat. In others, in the shade the throat was a clear bright scarlet, but in the sun it glowed with splendid metallic, fiery reflections about the neck and throat. 

It uttered from time to time, as it flew, a faint squeaking chirp or chirrup. The hum sounded more hollow when it approached a flower. Its wings fanned the air so forcibly that you-felt the cool wind they raised a foot off, and nearer it was very remarkable. Does not this very motion of the wings keep a bird cool in hot weather? 

The only indigenous willow I noticed yesterday on the Shawsheen — a mile below Fitch's mill — was the small sericea, such as by Assabet white maple. 

What was that loud but distant note of a bird, apparently in the low land, somewhat like the guinea-hen note, also reminding me a little of the plover about Truro light, but apparently a hawk? 

Got quite a view down the valley of the Shawsheen below the junction of Vine Brook, northeast, from a hill in the extreme northeast of Bedford.

P. M. – To Uvularia perfoliata at Flint's Pond. 

See again the warbler of yesterday. All bright yellow beneath and apparently bluish-slate above, but I do not see it well. Its note, with little variation, is like twit twit, twit twit, twitter twitter twe. It must be the parti-colored warbler.

Sat down in the sun in the path through Wright's wood-lot above Goose Pond, but soon, hearing a slight rustling, I looked round and saw a very large black snake about five feet long on the dry leaves, about a rod off. 

When I moved, it vibrated its tail very rapidly and smartly, which made quite a loud rustling or rattling sound, reminding me of the rattlesnake, as if many snakes obeyed the same instinct as the rattle snake when they vibrate their tails. Once I thought I heard a low hiss. 

It was on the edge of a young wood of oaks and a few white pines from ten to eighteen feet high, the oaks as yet bare of leaves. 

As I moved toward the snake, I thought it would take refuge in some hole, but it appeared that it was out on a scout and did not know of any place of refuge near. Suddenly, as it moved along, it erected itself half its length, and when I thought it was preparing to strike at me, to my surprise it glided up a slender oak sapling about an inch in diameter at the ground and ten feet high. 

It ascended this easily and quickly, at first, I think, slanting its body over the lowest twig of the next tree. There were seven little branches for nine feet, averaging about the size of a pipe-stem. It moved up in a somewhat zig zag manner, availing itself of the branches, yet also in part spirally about the main stem. It finds a rest (or hold if necessary) for its neck or forward part of its body, moving crosswise the small twigs, then draws up the rest of its body. From the top of this little oak it passed into the top of a white pine of the same height an inch and a half in diameter at the ground and two feet off; from this into another oak, fifteen feet high and three feet from the pine; from this to another oak, three feet from the last and about the same height; from this to a large oak about four feet off and three or four inches in diameter, in which it was about fourteen feet from the ground; thence through two more oaks, a little lower, at intervals of four feet, and so into a white pine; and at last into a smaller white pine and thence to the ground. 

The distance in a straight line from where it left the ground to where it descended was about twenty-five feet, and the greatest height it reached, about fourteen feet. It moved quite deliberately for the most part, choosing its course from tree to tree with great skill, and resting from time to time while it watched me, only my approach compelling it to move again. 

It surprised me very much to see it cross from tree to tree exactly like a squirrel, where there appeared little or no support for such a body. It would glide down the proper twig, its body resting at intervals of a foot or two, on the smaller side twigs, perchance, and then would easily cross an interval of two feet, sometimes in an ascending, sometimes a descending, direction. If the latter, its weight at last bent the first twig down nearer to the opposite one. It would extend its neck very much, as I could see by the increased width of the scales exposed, till its neck rested across the opposite twig, hold on all the while tightly to some part of the last twig by the very tip of its tail, which was curled round it just like a monkey's. 

I have hardly seen a squirrel rest on such slight twigs as it would rest on in mid-air, only two or three not bigger than a pipe-stem, while its body stretched clear a foot at least between two trees. It was not at all like creeping over a coarse basket work, but suggested long practice and skill, like the rope dancer's. There were no limbs for it to use comparable for size with its own body, and you hardly noticed the few slight twigs it rested on, as it glided through the air. 

When its neck rested on the opposite twig, it was, as it were, glued to it. It helped itself over or up them as surely as if it grasped with a hand. There were, no doubt, rigid kinks in its body when they were needed for support. It is a sort of endless hook, and, by its ability to bend its body in every direction, it finds some support on every side. Perhaps the edges of its scales give it a hold also. 

It is evident that it can take the young birds out of a sapling of any height, and no twigs are so small and pliant as to prevent it. Pendulous sprays would be the most difficult for it, where the twigs are more nearly parallel with the main one, as well as nearly vertical, but even then it might hold on by its tail while its head hung below. I have no doubt that this snake could have reached many of the oriole-nests which I have seen. 

I noticed that in its anger its rigid neck was very much flattened or compressed vertically. At length it coiled itself upon itself as if to strike, and, I presenting a stick, it struck it smartly and then darted away, running swiftly down the hill toward the pond. 

Yellow butterflies. 

Nabalus leaves are already up and coming up in the wood-paths. 

Also the radical leaves of one variety of Solidago arguta, and apparently of S. altissima, are conspicuously up. 

A golden-crowned thrush hops quite near. It is quite small, about the size of the creeper, with the upper part of its breast thickly and distinctly pencilled with black, a tawny head; and utters now only a sharp cluck for a chip. 

See and hear a redstart, the rhythm of whose strain is tse'-tse, tse'-tse, tse', emphasizing the last syllable of all and not ending with the common tsear. 

Hear the night-warbler. 

The Uvularia perfoliata, which did not show itself at all on the 3d, is now conspicuous, and one is open but will not shed pollen before to-morrow. It has shot up about ten inches in one case and bloomed within thirteen days!! 

Ranunculus repens at Brister's Spring; how long? Was that R. repens at the Everett Spring on the 3d? [Yes.]

The whip-poor-will heard. 

E. Hoar detected the other day two ovaries under one scale of a Salix rostrata, and, under another, a stamen and another stamen converted into an ovary.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 16, 1858

To Uvularia perfoliata at Flint's Pond. See May 30, 1857 ("By the path near the northeast shore of Flint's Pond. . .  am surprised to find it the Uvularia perfoliata, which I have not found hereabouts before.");  May 3, 1858 ("See no signs of the Uvularia perfoliata yet; apparently will not bloom within ten days") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bellworts

A hummingbird in some lights the shade the throat was a clear bright scarlet, but in the sun it glowed with splendid metallic, fiery reflections. See  May 17, 1856 (" A splendid male hummingbird . . . This golden-green gem. Its burnished back looks as if covered with green scales dusted with gold. . . . turning toward me that splendid ruby on its breast, that glowing ruby.") May 15, 1855("Hear a hummingbird in the garden."); May 16, 1852 ("I hear a hummingbird about the columbines.").