It is beautiful weather, the air wonderfully clear and all objects bright and distinct.

September 25


The season of flowers may be considered as past now that the frosts have come. Fires have become comfortable. The evenings are pretty long. 

2 P. M. To bathe in Hubbard's meadow, thence to ― Cliffs. 

It is beautiful weather, the air wonderfully clear and all objects bright and distinct. The air is of crystal purity.

Both air and water are so transparent that the fisherman tries in vain to deceive the fish with his baits. Even our commonly muddy river looks clear to-day.

I find the water suddenly cold, and that the bathing days are over. 

I see numerous butterflies still, yellow and small red, though not in fleets. 

Examined the hornets' nest near Hubbard's Grove, suspended from contiguous huckleberry bushes . . .

I watched the seeds of the milkweed rising higher and higher till lost in the sky . . . I brought home two of the pods which were already bursting open, and amused myself from day to day with releasing the seeds and watching [them] rise slowly into the heavens till they were lost to my eye. No doubt the greater or less rapidity with which they rose would serve as a natural barometer to test the condition of the air. 

The hornets' nest not brown but gray, two shades, whitish and dark, alternating on the outer layers or the covering, giving it a waved appearance. 

In these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of the jay sounds a little more native. Standing on the Cliffs, I see them flitting and screaming from pine to pine beneath, displaying their gaudy blue pinions. 

September 25, 2020

Hawks, too, I perceive, sailing about in the clear air, looking white against the green pines, like the seeds of the milkweed. There is almost always a pair of hawks. Their shrill scream, that of the owls, and wolves are all related.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1851

It is beautiful weather, the air wonderfully clear and all objects bright and distinct. See September 22, 1851 ("It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings, through which all things are distinctly seen.")

I find the water suddenly cold, and that the bathing days are over. See September 24, 1854 (" It is now too cold to bathe with comfort.");. September 26, 1852 ("The river is getting to be too cold for bathing."); September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

I watched the seeds of the milkweed rising higher and higher till lost in the sky. See September 24, 1851 ("I let one go, and it rises slowly and uncertainly at first, now driven this way, then that, by currents which I cannot perceive, and.  . . then, feeling the strong north wind, it is borne off rapidly in the opposite direction, ever rising higher and higher and tossing and heaved about with every fluctuation of the air, till, at a hundred feet above the earth and fifty rods off, steering south, I lose sight of it") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Milkweed.

I see numerous butterflies still, yellow and small red, though not in fleets. See . July 15, 1854 ("There are many butterflies, yellow and red, about the Asclepias incarnata now"); July 16, 1851 ("I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed . . .also the smaller butterfly, with reddish wing"); July 16, 1854 ("Many yellow butterflies and red on clover and yarrow."); . September 6, 1858 ("Solidago nemoralis . . . is swarming with butterflies, — yellow, small red, and large, — fluttering over it") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly

The hornets' nest. See September 28, 1851 ("Here was a large hornets' nest . . .out came the whole swarm upon me lively enough. I do not know why they should linger longer than their fellows whom I saw the other day."); October 15, 1855 (“The hornets’ nests are exposed, the maples being bare, but the hornets are gone.”); 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.")

In these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of the jay sounds a little more native. See September 25, 1855 ("The scream of the jay is heard from the wood-side."); see also August 7, 1853 ("Do I not already hear the jays with more distinctness, as in the fall and winter?"); September 21, 1859 (" Jays are more frequently heard of late.");October 6, 1856 ("The jay's shrill note is more distinct of late about the edges of the woods, when so many birds have left us.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

Hawks, too, I perceive, sailing about in the clear air .  . . There is almost always a pair.  See September 25, 1851 ("See two marsh hawks skimming low over the meadows and another, or a hen-hawk, sailing on high."); See also September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? There are eight or ten in sight from the Cliffs,") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The hen-hawk

Watching milkweed seeds

rising higher and higher 

till lost in the sky –

Hawks too sail about 

in the clear air looking white

against the green pines.

The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow.

September 11.

September 11, 2021

2 P. M. - To Hubbard's Meadow Grove.

The skunk-cabbage's checkered fruit (spadix), one three inches long; all parts of the flower but the anthers left and enlarged.

Bidens cernua, or nodding burr marigold, like a small sunflower (with rays) in Heywood Brook, i. e. beggar- tick.

Bidens connata (?), without rays, in Hubbard's Meadow.

Blue-eyed grass still.

Drooping neottia very common.

I see some yellow butterflies and others occasionally and singly only.

The smilax berries are mostly turned dark.

I started a great bittern from the weeds at the swimming-place.

It is very hot and dry weather.

We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. Are they ever quite dry? Are they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the grass, saved from evaporation? What wells for the birds!

The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow, whose berries were fairest a fortnight ago, appears to be the Viburnum nudum, or withe-rod.

Our cornel (the common) with berries blue one side, whitish the other, appears to be either the Cornus sericea or C. stolonifera of Gray, i. e. the silky, or the red-osier cornel (osier rouge), though its leaves are neither silky nor downy nor rough.

This and the last four or five nights have been perhaps the most sultry in the year thus far.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 11, 1851

Bidens cernua and Bidens connata. See September 11, 1852 ("How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather!. . .their beauty is enhanced, as if by the contrast of the louring atmosphere with their bright colors.Such are the purple gerardia and the Bidens cernua."); September 12, 1851 ("the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals"); September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now, . . . the third and fourth are conspicuous and interesting, expressing by their brilliant yellow the ripeness of the low grounds"); September 13, 1852("The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook."); September 14, 1854 ("The great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory,. . . Full of the sun. It needs a name."); September 15, 1856 ("What I must call Bidens cernua, like a small chrysanthemoides, is bristly hairy, somewhat connate and apparently regularly toothed"); September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens,or beggar-ticks,or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Great Bidens

Blue-eyed grass still. See August 25, 1851 and August 30, 1854 ("Blue-eyed grass still"). See also June 17. 1853 ("The dense fields of blue-eyed grass now blue the meadows, as if, in this fair season of the year, the clouds that envelop the earth were dispersing, and blue patches began to appear, answering to the blue sky. The eyes pass from these blue patches into the surrounding green as from the patches of clear sky into the clouds. "); September 23, 1859 ("So live that only the most beautiful wild-flowers will spring up where you have dwelt,") and note to May 29, 1853 ("That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention.') See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, blue-eyed grass

We have had no rain for a week, and yet the pitcher-plants have water in them. See August 18, 1854 ("We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty."); August 21, 1854 ("In Hubbard's meadow, between the two woods, I can not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it."); August 22, 1854 ("I find at length a pitcher-plant with a spoonful of water in it. It must be last night's dew."); November 16, 1852 ("At Holden's Spruce Swamp. The water is frozen in the pitcher-plant leaf."); February 11, 1858 ("The water in the pitcher-plant leaves is frozen, but I see none burst. They are very tightly filled and smooth, apparently stretched.")

The white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard's Meadow, whose berries were fairest a fortnight ago, appears to be the Viburnum nudum, or withe-rod. See August 24, 1851 ("Is that the naked viburnum, so common, with its white, red, then purple berries, in Hubbard's meadow?"); August 24, 1852 ("The Viburnum nudum shows now rich, variegated clusters amid its handsome, firm leaves, bright rosy-cheeked ones mingled with dark-purple.  All do not appear to turn purple."); August 29, 1858 ("[J. Farmer] calls the Viburnum nudum 'withe-wood' and  makes a withe by treading on one end and twisting by the other till he cracks it and makes it flexible so that it will bend without breaking.") See also  August 28, 1852 ("The viburnums, dentatum and nudum, are in their prime. The sweet viburnum not yet purple, and the maple-leaved still yellowish."); August 28, 1856 ("The panicled cornel berries are whitening, but already mostly fallen."); August 28, 1852 ("The berries of the alternate leaved cornel have dropped off mostly."); August 31, 1856 ("The Viburnum nudum berries are now in prime, a handsome rose-purple."); September 3, 1856 ("Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. The berries, which are of various sizes and forms, — elliptical, oblong, or globular, — are in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. If gathered when rose-colored, they soon turn dark purple and are soft and edible, though before bitter. They add a new and variegated wildness to the swampy sprout-lands. Remarkable for passing through so many stages of color before they arrive at maturity. A singular and pleasing contrast, also, do the different kinds of viburnum and cornel berries present when compared with each other.") 

Our cornel (the common) with berries blue one side, whitish the other, appears to be either the Cornus sericea or C. stolonifera of Gray, i. e. the silky, or the red-osier cornel. See June 13, 1852 ("I think I know four kinds of cornel beside the dogwood and bunchberry: . . . (Cornus alternifolia? or sericea?); . . . (C. circinata?); . . . (C. paniculata); and the red osier by the river (C. stolonifera), which I have not seen this year."); August 28, 1852 ("Now the red osier berries are very handsome along the river, overhanging the water, for the most part pale blue mixed with whitish, -- part of the pendant jewelry of the season. . . . The white-berried and red osier are in their prime. The other three kinds I have not seen.); August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river."); August 31, 1856 (“The Cornus sericea, with its berries just turning,"); September 1, 1854 ("The Cornus sericea berries are now in prime, of different shades of blue, lighter or darker, and bluish white. . . .a great ornament to our causeways and riverside.”); September 3, 1856 (“The white berries of the panicled cornel, soon and apparently prematurely dropping from its pretty fingers, are very bitter. So also are those of the C. sericea. ”); September 4, 1857 ("Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen") September 4, 1859 ("The Cornus sericea and C. paniculata are rather peculiar for turning to a dull purple on the advent of cooler weather and frosts,"); September 7, 1856 ("Apparently Cornus stolonifera (?) by brook . . . with the sericea. ")   See also August 27, 1856 ("There are many wild-looking berries about now."); September 3, 1853 ("Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man.. . .Berries which are as beautiful as flowers, but far less known, the fruit of the flower."); September 11, 1859 ("September is the month when various small, and commonly inedible, berries in cymes and clusters hang over the roadsides and along the walls and fences, or spot the forest floor. ")

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

July 22.

P. M. – To Annursnack.

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

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

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

I see sometimes houstonias still.

The elodea out.

Boehmeria not yet.

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

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

Smooth sumach berries crimson there.

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

Yellow butterflies in the road.

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

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

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 22, 1853

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

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

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

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

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

It is the season of fuzzy seeds. On mountain path greeted by a wild violet.

October 23. 

Sunday. P. M. — Down railroad to chestnut wood on Pine Hill. 

October 23, 2022

A pleasant day, but breezy. 

I see a downy woodpecker tapping an apple tree, and hear, when I have passed, his sharp, metallic note.

 I notice these flowers still along the railroad causeway: 

• fresh sprouts from the root of the Solidago nemoralis in bloom,
• one or two fall dandelions,
• red clover and white,
• yarrow, 
• Trifolium arvense (perhaps not fresh),
• one small blue snapdragon,
• fresh tansy in bloom on the sunny sand bank. 

There are green leaves on the ends of elder twigs; blackberry vines still red; apple trees yellow and brown and partly bare; white ash bare (nearly); golden willows yellow and brown; white birches, exposed, are nearly bare; some pines still parti-colored. 

White, black, and red oaks still hold most of their leaves. What a peculiar red has the white! And some black have now a rich brown. 

The Populus grandidentata near railroad, bare; the P. tremuloides, half bare.

The hickories are finely crisped, yellow, more or less browned. 

Several yellow butterflies in the meadow. 

And many birds flit before me along the railroad, with faint notes, too large for linarias. Can they be tree sparrows ? Some weeks. [Probably the white-in-tail [i. e. vesper sparrow, or grass finch].] 

Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds. 

Everywhere in the fields I see the white, hoary (ashy-colored) sceptres of the gray goldenrod. Others are slightly yellowish still. The yellow is gone out of them, as the last flake of sunshine disappears from a field when the clouds are gathering. But though their golden hue is gone, their reign is not over. Compact puffed masses of seeds ready to take wing. They will send out their ventures from hour to hour the winter through. 

October 23, 2016

The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression. 

I go through Brooks's Hollow. 

The hazels bare, only here and there a few sere, curled leaves on them. 

The red cherry is bare. 

The blue flag seed-vessels at Walden are bursting, — six closely packed brown rows. 

I find my clothes all bristling as with a chevaux-de-frise of beggar-ticks, which hold on for many days. A storm of arrows these weeds have showered on me, as I went through their moats. How irksome the task to rid one's self of them! We are fain to let some adhere. Through thick and thin I wear some; hold on many days. In an instant a thousand seeds of the bidens fastened themselves firmly to my clothes, and  I carried them for miles, planting one here and another there. They are as thick on my clothes as the teeth of a comb. 

The prinos is bare, leaving red berries. 

The pond has gone down suddenly and surprisingly since I was here last, and this pool is left, cut off at a higher level, stagnant and drying up. This is its first decided going down since its going up a year or two ago. 

The red-looking water purslane is left bare, and the water-target leaves are turned brown and drying up on the bare mud. 

The clethra partly bare, crisped, yellowish and brown, with its fruit with persistent styles (?) in long racemes. 

Here are dense fields of light-colored rattlesnake grass drooping with the weight of their seeds. 

The high blueberries about the pond have still a few leaves left on, turned bright scarlet red. These it is adorn the shore so, seen at a distance, small but very bright. 

The panicled andromeda is thinly clad with yellow and brown leaves, not sere. 

Alders are green. 

Smooth sumach bare. 

Chestnuts commonly bare. 

I now notice the round red buds of the high blueberry. 

The blue-stemmed, and also the white, solidago on Walden bank. 

Small sassafras trees bare. 

The Aster undulatus is still quite abundant and fresh on this high, sunny bank, — far more so than the Solidago coesia, — and methinks it is the latest of our asters and is besides the most common or conspicuous flower now. It is in large, dense masses, two or three feet high, pale purple or whitish, and covered with humble- bees. The radical leaves, now hearted and crenatish, are lake beneath. 

Also a hieracium quite freshly bloomed, but with white, bristly leaves and smooth stem, about twenty-flowered; peduncles and involucres glandular-hairy. Is it Gronovii or veiny-leaved? Almost as slender as the panicled. (In press.) 

No gerardias. 

Strawberries are red and green. 

It is the season of fuzzy seeds, — goldenrods, everlasting, senecio, asters, epilobium, etc., etc. 

Viburnum Lentago, with ripe berries and dull-glossy red leaves; young black cherry, fresh green or yellow; mayweed. 

The chestnuts have mostly fallen. 

One Diplopappus linariifolius in bloom, its leaves all yellow or red. 

This and A. undulatus the asters seen to-day. 

The red oak now red, perhaps inclining to scarlet; the white, with that peculiar ingrained redness; the shrub oak, a clear thick leather-color; some dry black oak, darker brown; chestnut, light brown; hickory, yellow, turning brown. These the colors of some leaves I brought home.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 23, 1853

I see a downy woodpecker tapping an apple tree, and hear, when I have passed, his sharp, metallic note.  See October 23, 1855 ("A downy woodpecker on an apple tree utters a sharp, shrill, rapid tea te t, t, t, t t t t t. "); December 5, 1853 ("See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Downy Woodpecker

The peeping of the hylodes for some time.  See   October 2, 1859 ("Hear a hylodes in the swamp."); October 3, 1852 (" I hear a hylodes (?) from time to time."); October 3, 1858 ("Hear a hylodes peeping on shore. ');  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Late Season Frogs and Toads

The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression. See October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring . . . No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us"); See also May 21, 1852 ("Viola pedata along the woodland paths in high land.") and Basho:

On mountain path

greeted by

a wild violet.

The Populus grandidentata near railroad, bare; the P. tremuloides, half bare. See October 21, 1858 ("The Populus grandidentata is quite yellow and leafy yet. "); October 25, 1858 ("Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. ")

Is it Gronovii or veiny-leaved? See note to July 17, 1853 ("I think we have no Hieracium Gronoviis")

October 23.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 23

Low in the wood-path 

The Viola pedata 

makes an impression.

Flowers blossoming,

hylodes peeping, birds singing

like a second spring.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, greeted by a wild violet.

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 © 2026 

tinyurl.com/HDT531023

A peculiarly fine September day,

September 21. 

September 21, 2019

Heard in the night a snapping sound and the fall of some small body on the floor from time to time. In the morning I found that it was produced by the witch-hazel nuts on my desk springing open and casting their seeds quite across the chamber, hard and stony as these nuts are. 

It is overcast, like yesterday, and yet more rain-promising. Methinks the 19th was such a day (the second after rain) as the 18th in '58, — a peculiarly fine September day, looking toward the fall, warm and bright, with yellow butterflies in the washed road, and early-changed maples and shrubs adorning the low grounds. The red nesaea blazing along the Assabet above the powder-mills. The apple crop, red and yellow, more conspicuous than ever amid the washed leaves. 

The farmers on all sides are digging their potatoes, so prone to their work that they do not see me going across lots. 

I sat near Coombs's pigeon-place by White Pond. The pigeons sat motionless on his bare perches, from time to time dropping down into the bed and uttering a quivet or two. Some stood on the perch; others squatted flat. I could see their dove-colored breasts. Then all at once, being alarmed, would take flight, but ere long return in straggling parties. 

He tells me that he has fifteen dozen baited, but does not intend to catch any more at present, or for two or three weeks, hoping to attract others. Rice says that white oak acorns pounded up, shells and all, make the best bait for them. 

I see now in the wood-paths where small birds and partridges, etc., have been destroyed, — only their feathers left, — probably by hawks. Do they not take their prey often to a smooth path in the woods? 

White Pond is being dimpled here and there all over, perhaps by fishes; and so is the river. It is an overcast day. Has that anything to do with it? 

I see some of the rainbow girdle reflected around its edge. Looking with the proper intention of the eye, I see it is ribbed with the dark prolonged reflections of the pines almost across. But why are they bent one side? Is it the effect of the wind? 

We are having our dog-days now and of late, methinks, having had none to speak of in August; and now at last I see a few toadstools, — the election-cake (the yellowish, glazed over) and the taller, brighter-yellow above. Those shell-less slugs which eat apples eat these also. 

Jays are more frequently heard of late, maybe because other birds are more silent. 

Considerable many acorns are fallen (black oak chiefly) in the path under the south edge of Conant's Wood, this side of White Pond. Acorns have been falling very sparingly ever since September 1, but are mostly wormy. They are as interesting now on the shrub oak (green) as ever. 

I suspect that it is not when the witch-hazel nut first gapes open that the seeds fly out, for I see many (if not most of them) open first with the seeds in them; but when I release a seed (it being still held by its base), it flies as I have said. I think that its slippery base is compressed by the unyielding shell, which at length expels it, just as I can make one fly by pressing it and letting it slip from between my thumb and finger. It appears to fit close to the shell at its base, even after the shell gapes. 

The ex-plenipotentiary refers in after [-dinner] speeches with complacency to the time he spent abroad and the various lords and distinguished men he met, as to a deed done and an ever-memorable occasion! Of what account are titles and offices and opportunities, if you do no memorable deed? 

I perceive that a spike of arum berries which I gathered quite green September 1 is now turned completely scarlet, and though it has lain on my desk in a dry and warm chamber all the while, the berries are still perfectly plump and fresh (as well as glossy) to look at, — as much so as any. 

The greater part [of], almost all, the mikania was killed by the frost of the 15th and 16th. Only that little which was protected by its position escaped and is still in bloom. And the button-bush too is generally browned above by the same cause. This has given a considerably brown look to the side of the river. 

Saw baeomyces (lately opened, probably with the rain of the 17th) by roadside. 

Yesterday was a still, overcast, rain-promising day, and I saw this morning (perhaps it was yesterday) the ground about the back door all marked with worm-piles. Had they not come out for water after the dry weather? 

See a St. Domingo cuckoo (black-billed) still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1859

The witch-hazel nuts on my desk springing open and casting their seeds quite across the chamber. September 18, 1859 ("The double-fruited stone splits and reveals the two shining black oblong seeds. It has a peculiarly formed nut, in pretty clusters, clothed, as it were, in close-fitting buckskin.")

A peculiarly fine September day, looking toward the fall, warm and bright, with yellow butterflies.  See September 21, 1854  ("With this bright, clear, but rather cool air the bright yellow of the autumnal dandelion is in harmony "); September 21, 1857 ("The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days.") See also September 18, 1858 ("It is a wonderful day."); September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day, warm but not too warm, a harvest day . . ."If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.”)

Yellow butterflies in the washed road. See note to September 19, 1859 ("See many yellow butterflies in the road this very pleasant day after the rain of yesterday.")

The red nesaea blazing along the Assabet above the powder-mills. See July 21, 1859 ("The nesaea grows commonly along the river near the powder-mills, one very dense bed of it at the mouth of the powder-mill canal.")

The farmers on all sides are digging their potatoes, so prone to their work that they do not see me going across lots. Compare September 27, 1858 ("The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast."); November 18, 1851 ("The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work. "); April 12, 1854 ("It is from out the shadow of my toil that I look into the light."); April 30, 1856 (“ Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. The music or the beauty belong not to your work. . . but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work.”)

At last I see a few toadstools, — the election-cake (the yellowish, glazed over). See October 2, 1859 ("Nowadays I see most of the election-cake fungi, with crickets and slugs eating them"); October 4, 1858 ("See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools."); October 10, 1858 ("I find the under sides of the election-cake fungi there covered with pink-colored fleas"); 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."); October 16, 1859 ("That election-cake fungus which is still growing (as for some months) appears to be a Boletus"); October 20, 1857 ("I see the yellowish election-cake fungi."); October 29, 1855 ("There are many fresh election-cake toadstools amid the pitch pine”); See also Concord: A Sense of Place, October 20, 2015, Election-cake Fungus Mystery.

Jays are more frequently heard of late. See September 21, 1854 (“I hear many jays since the frosts began”)

Yellow butterflies in the road after the rain of yesterday.

September 19

A. M. — To Stow. 

Hear the note of the goldfinch on all sides this fine day after the storm. 

Butternuts have been falling for two or three weeks, — now mostly fallen, — but must dry and lose their outer shells before cracking them. 

They say that kittens' tails are brittle, and perhaps the tip of that one's was broken off. 

The young gentleman who travels abroad learns to pronounce, and makes acquaintance with foreign lords and ladies, — among the rest perchance with Lord Ward, the inventor and probably consumer of the celebrated Worcestershire Sauce. 

See many yellow butterflies in the road this very pleasant day after the rain of yesterday. One flutters across between the horse and the wagon safely enough, though it looks as if it would be run down.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1859


See many yellow butterflies in the road this very pleasant day after the rain of yesterday. See September 3, 1854 (“I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier.”); September 4, 1856 ("Butterflies in road a day or two.”); September 11, 1852 ("I see some yellow butterflies and others occasionally and singly only."); September 13, 1858 ("Many yellow butterflies in road and fields all the country over.”); September 17, 1852 ("Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers"); October 7, 1857 ("Crossing Depot Brook, I see many yellow butterflies fluttering about the Aster puniceus, still abundantly in bloom there"); October 18, 1856 (“I still see a yellow butterfly occasionally zigzagging by the roadside”); October 20, 1858 ("I see yellow butterflies chasing one another, taking no thought for the morrow, but confiding in the sunny day as if it were to be perpetual.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Butterflies

What produces this flashing air of autumn?

September 17. 

What produces this flashing air of autumn? — a brightness as if there were not green enough to absorb the light, now that the first frosts wither the herbs. 

The corn-stalks are stacked like muskets along the fields. 

The pontederia leaves are sere and brown along the river. 

The fall is further advanced in the water, as the spring was earlier there. I should say that the vegetation of the river was a month further advanced in its decay than of the land generally. 

The yellow lily pads are apparently decayed generally; as I wade, I tread on their great roots only; and the white lily pads are thinned. 

Now, before any effects of the frost are obvious on the leaves, I observe two black rows of dead pontederia in the river. 

Is it the alder locust that rings so loud in low land now? 

The umbel-shaped smilax berry clusters are now ripe. 

Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers. 

I hear the downy woodpecker whistle, and see him looking about the apple trees as if to bore him a hole. Are they returning south? 

Abundance of wild grapes. I laid down some wild red grapes in front of the Cliffs, three united to a two-thirds-inch stock, many feet from the root, under an alder marked with two or three small sticks atop, and, ten feet north, two more of different stocks, one-half inch diameter, directly on the edge of the brook, their tops over the water, the shell of a five-inch log across them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 17, 1852

The corn-stalks are stacked like muskets along the fields. See September 14,1851("The corn-stalks standing in stacks, in long rows along the edges of the corn-fields, remind me of stacks of muskets.")

The corn-stalks standing

in stacks in long rows along

edges of corn-fields.

September 14,1851

Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers. See August 15, 1851 ("Oxalis stricta, upright wood-sorrel, the little yellow ternate-leaved flower in pastures and corn-fields. "); September 13, 1858 ("Many yellow butterflies in road and fields all the country over.”) and note to October 20, 1858 ("I see yellow butterflies chasing one another, taking no thought for the morrow, but confiding in the sunny day as if it were to be perpetual.")

I hear the downy woodpecker whistle, and see him looking about the apple trees as if to bore him a hole. Are they returning south? See December 2, 1850 ("The woodpeckers' holes in the apple trees are about a fifth of an inch deep or just through the bark and half an inch apart. "); December 5, 1853 ("See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles?");  December 14, 1855 ("I heard the sound of a downy woodpecker tapping . . . Frequently, when I pause to listen, I hear this sound in the orchards or streets.");December 21, 1855 ( "Going to the post-office at 9 A. M. this very pleasant morning, . . . scare a downy woodpecker and a brown creeper in company"); December 30, 1855 ("See one downy woodpecker and one or two chickadees."); January 5, 1860 ("I see where the downy woodpecker has worked lately by the chips of bark and rotten wood scattered over the snow, though I rarely see him in the winter. Once to-day, however, I hear his sharp voice."); January 20, 1856 ("A downy woodpecker without red on head the only bird seen in this walk.")

I laid down some wild red grapes in front of the Cliffs. Compare September 18, 1858 ("Finding grapes, we proceeded to pluck them, tempted more by their fragrance and color than their flavor, though some were very palatable. We gathered many without getting out of the boat, as we paddled back, and more on shore close to the water’s edge, piling them up in the prow of the boat till they reached to the top of the boat, — a long sloping heap of them and very handsome to behold, being of various colors and sizes, for we even added green ones for variety. Some, however, were mainly green when ripe. You cannot touch some vines without bringing down more single grapes in a shower around you than you pluck in bunches, and such as strike the water are lost, for they do not float. But it is a pity to break the handsome clusters. Thus laden, the evening air wafting the fragrance of the cargo back to us, we paddled homeward. ")

Now are the days to go a-berrying

July 18.

JULY 18, 2014

Sonchus oleraceus well in bloom. 

8.30 a. m. — To Sudbury meadows with W. E. C. by boat.

Hardhack in bloom perhaps a day or two. The button-bush beginning to open generally. The late, or river, rose spots the copses over the water, — a great ornament to the river's brink now. Three utricularias and perhaps the horned also common now. Rhexia, a day or two. The pads are now much eaten. 

Thoroughwort. Meadow haying has commenced. There is no pause between the English and meadow haying. There are thousands of yellow butterflies on the pontederia flowers, and of various colors on the button-bush. 

In the Sudbury meadows are dense fields of pipes three feet high bordering the river. The common large rush, flowering at top, makes black-looking squads there. The fields of pontederia are in some places four or five rods wide and almost endless, but, crossing from side to side on shore, are the open white umbels of the hemlock, and now the sium begins to show. 

These meadows, with their meandering stream, through whose weeds it is hard to push a boat, are very wild. 

The stake-driver and the virescens rise and go off with sluggish flight from time to time. 

What is that continual dry chucking sound heard about the pads? The darting of a fish, or of an insect? 

The heart-leaves are eaten and turned dark, but the less decayed part in the centres, still green, is of the form and appearance of the less cut leaves of the Ranunculus Purshii, — either leading to or following after that. As they decay, such a leaf as the less divided ones of the R. Purshii is left, or promises to be left, — is suggested. 

That smaller narrow-leaved polygonum which forms the first and lower rank in the river is in many places in blossom, rose-colored, whitish. 

What is that rather tall, coarse kind of aster, with a few broad rays, in the copse behind Bittern Cliff?  Is it Diplopappus cornifolius ? 

Now are the days to go a-berrying.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 18, 1853



Rhexia, a day or two. 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.")

There are thousands of yellow butterflies on the pontederia flowers, See July 18, 1852(" The pontederias are alive with butterflies.")

The fields of pontederia are in some places four or five rods wide and almost endless. See July 18, 1852 ("The pontederias are now in their prime . . .They are very freshly blue. In the sun, when you are looking west, they are of a violaceous blue.")


Now are the days to go a-berrying. See July 18, 1854 ("As I go along the Joe Smith road, every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems")

July 18. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 18

A Book of 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