On the hill where Billington climbed a tree.

May 24.

The cooing of a dove reminded me of an owl this morning. 

Counted just fifty violets (pedata) in a little bunch, three and a half by five inches, and as many buds, there being six plants close together; on the hill where Billington climbed a tree. 

A calabash at Pilgrim Hall nearly two feet high, in the form of a jar, showed what these fruits were made for. Nature's jars and vases. 

Holbrook says the Bufo Americanus is the most common in America and is our representative of the Bufo communis of Europe; speaks of its trill; deposits its spawn in pools. 

Found in College Yard Trifolium procumbens, or yellow clover. 

Concord. — Celandine in blossom, and horse-chest nut.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1852


Counted just fifty violets (pedata) in a little bunch. See May 20, 1853 ("Plucked to-day a bunch of Viola pedata, consisting of four divisions or offshoots around a central or fifth root, all united and about one inch in diameter at the ground and four inches at top") See also May 10, 1858 ("How much expression there is in the Viola pedata! I do not know on the whole but it is the handsomest of them all, it is so large and grows in such large masses. [I]t spreads so perfectly open with its face turned upward that you get its whole expression."); May 17, 1853 ("The V. pedata there presents the greatest array of blue of any flower as yet. The flowers are so raised above their leaves, and so close together, that they make a more indelible impression of blue on the eye; it is almost dazzling. . . .The effect and intensity is very much increased by the numbers.")

Found in College Yard Trifolium procumbens, or yellow clover. See May 30, 1856 ("Yellow clover abundantly out, though the heads are small yet. Are they quite open?"); June 5, 1855 ("Yellow clover well out some days."); September 21, 1858 ("Saw, in Salem, . . . Trifolium procumbens, still abundant"). [Trifolium procumbens is now called Trifolium campestre, commonly known as hop trefoil, field clover and low hop clover, is a species of clover  growing in dry, sandy grassland habitats, fields, woodland margins, roadsides, wastelands and cultivated land. The species name campestre means "of the fields".]

Celandine in blossom. See May 24, 1855 ("Celandine pollen."); See also May 14, 1858 ("Celandine by cemetery. "); May 16, 1853 ("Celandine is out a day or more"); May 18, 1854 ("Celandine yesterday.");

May 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 24 

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 Lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side.

May 30. 
P. M. — To Linnaea Wood-lot. 

The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th. 

That desert, small as it now is (for it is partly reclaimed by using pine boughs as a salve), is scored with circles (like that of Provincetown) made by the dry Polygonum articulatum blown about. It is but a lesser Sahara, and I cannot see it without being reminded that, in some parts of the globe, sand prevails like an ocean. 

What are those black masses of fibrous roots mixed with smaller dark-gray, cone-like tubers, on the sand?

Return 'via Clamshell. Yellow clover abundantly out, though the heads are small yet. Are they quite open? 

Comandra umbellata, apparently a day or two. 

Frank Harding caught five good-sized chivin this cold and windy day from the new stone bridge. The biggest one was quite red or coppery; the others but slightly, except the head. Is it a peculiarity of age?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1856

The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side . . . See May 30, 1858 ("Hear of lady's-slipper seen the 23d; how long?"); May 30, 1855 ("Ladies’ slipper, apparently”); May 27, 1852 ("Ladies'-slippers out. They perfume the air.”); May 26, 1857 (“A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. ”); May 20, 1852 ("A lady's-slipper well budded”); May19, 1860 (“At the Ministerial Swamp I see a white lady's-slipper almost out, fully grown, with red ones.”); May 18, 1851 ("Lady's-slipper almost fully blossomed”).

Polygonum articulate:   Coastal jointed knotweed - found on sand dunes, pine barrens, or disturbed areas with sandy soils. GoBotany

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021