31 August 1857 – 6 September 1857

Monday. P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. An abundance of fine high blackberries behind Britton’s old camp on the Lincoln road, now in their prime there, which have been overlooked. Is it not our richest fruit ? Our first muskmelon to-day. Lycopodium complanatum out, how long? I have seen for several days amphicarpza with perfectly white flowers, in dense clusters. At Flint’s Pond I waded along the edge eight or ten rods to the wharf rock, carrying my shoes and stockings. Was surprised to see on the bottom and washing up on to the shore many little farinaceous roots or tubers like very small potatoes, in strings. I saw these at every step for more than a dozen rods and thought they must have been washed up from deeper waters. Examining very closely, I traced one long string through the sandy soil to the root of a ground-nut which grew on the edge of the bank, and afterwards saw many more, whose tuberous roots lying in the sand were washed bare, the pond being unusually high. I could have gathered quarts of them. I picked up one string floating loose, about eighteen inches long, with as usual a little greenness and vitality at one end, which had thirteen nuts on it about the size of a walnut or smaller. I never saw so many ground-nuts before, and this made on me the impression of an unusual fertility.

Tuesday. P. M. —To Fair Haven Pond by boat. Landing at Bittern Cliff, I see that fine purple grass; how long? At Baker’s shore, I at length distinguished fairly the Sagittarta simplex, which I have known solong, the small one with simple leaves. But this year there are very few of them, being nearly drowned out by the high water. On the west side of Fair Haven Pond, an abundance of the Utricularia purpurea and of the whorled, etc., whose finely dissected leaves are a rich sight in the water. Again I observe that the heart-leaf, as it decays, preserves fresh and green for some time within, or in its centre, a finely dissected green leaf, suggesting that it has passed through this stage in its development. Im- mersed leaves often present this form, but [it] seems that even emersed ones remember it. High black- berries are still in their prime on Lee’s Cliff, but huckle- berries soft and wormy, many of them. T have finally settled for myself the question of the two varieties of Polygonum amphibium. I think there are not even two varieties. As formerly, I observe again to-day a Polygonum amphibium extending from the shore six feet into the water. In the water, of course, the stem is prostrate, rank, and has something ser- pent-like in its aspect. From the shore end rise erect flowering branches whose leaves are more or less roughish and prickly on the midrib beneath. On the water end the leaves are long-petioled, heart-shaped, and perfectly smooth. Vide a specimen pressed. I have seen this same plant growing erect in the driest soil, by the roadside, and it ranges from this quite into the water.

Wednesday. P. M. — To Yellow Birches. Measured the thorn at Yellow Birch Swamp. At one foot from ground it is a foot and ten inches in circum- ference. The first branch is at two feet seven inches. The tree spreads about eighteen feet. The height is about seventeen feet. A yellow birch some rods north was, at three feet from ground, four feet plus in circumference. A second, northeast of it, was, at four feet, five feet five inches in circumference. It branched at eight feet, the branches extending north two and a third rods, but south only one and a half. Was some fifty or sixty feet high. The third, or largest, yellow birch, at the cellar, was, at three feet from the ground on the inside or at the ground on the outside, just below the branches, ten feet nine inches in circumference. It divides to three branches at ground on the upper side, and these al- most immediately to three more, so low and horizontal that you can easily step into it. It extends two rods east and one west, the ends of the branches coming down to height of head all round, nearly. It is about two thirds as high as wide, or thirty-three feet high. Looking from the west, of ‘an irregular diamond shape resting on the ground. The roots inclose some cellar. stones. All these birches were measured at the smallest place between the ground and branches. Large yellow birches branch low and form a dense broom-like head of many long tapering branches. In the botrychium swamp, where the fever-bush is the prevailing underwood, I see a Rhus radicans run- ning up a buttonwood which is some forty feet high. It first makes a complete circle about it horizontally at the ground, then goes winding up it in a serpentine manner on the southwest (?) side, thirty feet at least, or as far as I could see, beginning to put out a few twigs at seven or eight feet. It is a vine one and a half and two inches wide, somewhat flattened, clinging close and flat to the tree by innumerable brown fibres which invest itself and adhere to the bark on each side in a thick web. You can hardly tell if it is alive or dead with[out] looking upward. Remembering that it was poisonous to some to handle, it had altogether a venom- ous look. It made me think of a venomous beast of prey which had sprung upon the tree and had it in its clutches, as the glutton is said to cling to the deer while it sucks its blood. It had fastened on it, as a leop- ard or panther on a deer and there was no escape. It was not married to the buttonwood, as the vine to the poplar. I saw a still larger one the other day in Natick on an elm. Some bass trees blossomed sparingly after all, for I see some fruit.

P. M.— Rode to Prospect Hill, Waltham. The Polygonum Pennsylvanicum there. One Chima- phila maculata on the hill. Tufts of Woodsia Ilvensis. Hedyotis longifolia still flowering commonly, near the top, in a thin wood. Gerardia tenurfolia by the road in Lincoln, and a slate-colored snowbird back.

P. M.—'To Bateman’s Pond. Rudbeckia laciniata (?) by Dodge’s Brook, north of the road; how long? Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen. The leaves of the light-colored spruce in the spruce swamp are erect like the white! Penetrating through the thicket of that swamp, I see a great many very straight and slender upright shoots, the slenderest and tallest that I ever saw. They are the Prinos levigatus. I cut one and brought it home in a ring around my neck, —it was flexible enough for that, — and found it to be seven and a half feet long and quite straight, eleven fortieths of an inch in diameter at the ground and three fortieths [in] diameter at the other end, only the last foot or so of this year’s growth. It had a light-grayish bark, rough- dotted. Generally they were five or six feet high and not bigger than a pipe-stem anywhere. This comes of its growing in dense dark swamps, where it makes a good part of the underwood. At the cleft rock by the hill just west of this swamp, — call it Cornel Rock, —I found apparently Aspv- dium cristatum (?), qg. v. That is an interesting spot. There is the handsomest and most perfect Cornus circinata there that I know, now apparently its fruit in prime, hardly light-blue but delicate bluish-white. It is the richest-looking of the cornels, with its large round leaf and showy cymes; a slender bush seven or eight feet high. There is quite a collection of rare plants there, — petty morel, Thalictrum dioicum, witch- hazel, etc., Rhus radicans, maple-leaved viburnum, polypody, Polygonum dumetorum, anychia. There was a strawberry vine falling over the perpendicular face of the rock,—or more than perpendicular, — which hung down dangling in the air five feet, not yet reach- ing the bottom, with leaves at intervals of fifteen inches. Various rocks scattered about in these woods rising — just to the surface with smooth rounded surfaces, showing a fine stratification on its edges. The sides of Cornus florida Ravine at Bateman’s Pond are a good place for ferns. ‘There is a Woodsia Ilvensis, a new one to Concord. Petty morel in the ravine, and large cardinal-flowers. I see prenanthes radical leaf turned pale-yellow. Arum berries ripe. Already, long before sunset, I feel the dew falling in that cold calla swamp.

Saturday. I now see those brown shaving- like stipules ' of the white pine leaves, which are fall- ing, 2. ¢. the stipules, and caught in cobwebs. River falls suddenly, having been Azgh all summer.

Sunday. P.M.— To Assabet, west bank. Turned off south at Derby’s Bridge and walked 1 ? Sheaths. through a long field, half meadow, half upland. Soap- wort gentian, out not long, and dwarf cornel again. There is a handsome crescent-shaped meadow on this side, opposite Harrington’s. A good-sized black oak in the pasture by the road half-way between the school- house and Brown’s. Walked under Brown’s hemlocks by the railroad. How commonly hemlocks grow on the north slope of a hill near its base, with only bare reddened ground beneath! This bareness probably is not due to any peculiar quality in the hemlocks, for I observe that it is the same under pitch and white pines when equally thick. I suspect that it 1s owing more to the shade than to the fallen leaves. I see one of those peculiarly green locusts with long and slender legs on a grass stem, which are often concealed by their color. What green, herbaceous, graminivorous ideas he must have! I wish that my thoughts were as season- able as his! Some haws begin to be ripe. We go along under the hill and woods north of rail- road, west of Lord’s land, about to the west of the swamp and to the Indian ditch. I see in the swamp black choke- berries twelve feet high at least and in fruit. C. says that they use high blueberry wood for thole- pins on the Plymouth ponds. I observe to-day, away at the south end of our dry garden, a moist and handsome Rana halecina. It is the only frog that I ever see in such localities. He is quite a traveller. A very cool day.