18 July 1853 – 24 July 1853

Sonchus oleraceus well in bloom. 8.30 a. M.— To Sudbury meadows with W. E. C. by boat.

Clematis has been open a day or two. The alisma will open to-morrow or next day. This morn- ing a fog and cool. What is that small conyza-like aster, with flaccid linear leaves, in woods near Boiling Spring? Some woodbine, cultivated, apparently long since flowered. The same of some on Lee’s Cliff, where it is early.

To Nawshawtuct at moonrise with Sophia, by boat.

2 Pp. m. — Went, in pursuit of boys who had stolen my boat-seat, to Fair Haven. Plenty of berries there now, — large huckleberries, blueberries, and blackberries. My downy-leafed plant of Annursnack and under the Cliffs, now in bloom, and some days, is the Pycnanthemum incanum, — common mountain mint or wild basil. It is two or three feet high and very velvety-downy, while calamint is rigid. What is that small creeping plant covering the ground in the Cliff brook like a veronica, — leaf shaped like that of the small veronica on the Cliffs, leaves opposite but far apart, rooting at base? No traces of a flower. The small purple orchis, its spikes half opened. The Rhus copallina is most abundant on the low knoll beneath the Cliffs, not yet blossomed. Euphorbia hypericifolia (?) at Bittern Cliff, how long? Horse-mint, a day or two, the earliest. Desmodium acu- minatum, some days; it is a delicate spike of flowers on a long peduncle. The berries of the alternate cornel are beginning to ripen. I am entering Fair Haven Pond. It is now perfectly still and smooth, like dark glass. Yet the westering sun is very warm. He who passes over a lake at noon, when the waves run, little imagines its serene and placid beauty at evening, as little as he anticipates his own serenity. There is no more beautiful part of the river than the entrance to this pond. The Asclepias incarnata is well named water silkweed, for it grows here amid the button- bushes and willows in the wettest places along the river. Nature is beautiful only as a place where a life is to be lived. It is not beautiful to him who has not resolved on a beautiful life. The horned utricularia appears to be in its prime, though there was none here June 16th. It yellows the shore, together with the hyssop and filiform ranunculus, not to mention the lanceolate loosestrife. The spear thistle.

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 sea- son 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 Campa- nula 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.

P. M.— To P. Hutchinson’s. I cannot find a single crotalaria pod there this year. Stone-crop is abundant and has now for some time been out at R. Brown’s watering-place; also the water- plantain, which is abundant there. About the water further north the elodea is very common, and there, too, the rhexia is seen afar on the islets, — its brilliant red like a rose. It is fitly called meadow-beauty. Is it not the handsomest and most striking and brilliant flower since roses and lilies began? Blue vervain out some days. Bathing yesterday in the Assabet, I saw that many breams, apparently an old one with her young of various sizes, followed my steps and found their food in the water which I had muddied. The old one pulled lustily at a Potamogeton hybridus, drawing it off one side horizontally with her mouth full, and then swal- lowed what she tore off. The young pouts were two and a half inches long in Flint’s Pond the 17th.

Sunday. 4.30 a. M. — By boat to Island. Robins, larks, peawais, etc., as in the spring, at this hour. The mikania to-morrow or next day.'| The zizania, some days. ‘The low, front-rank polygonums are still imbrowned in many places; as I think, have not recovered from the effect of late frosts.