30 July 1860 – 5 August 1860

2». m.— To Martial Miles’s Swamp. Fimbristylis capillaris, probably several days in some places. See very pretty pink yarrow, roadside opposite Whiting’s orchard. See hen-hawks perched. Are they not more at liberty now, their young being better able to shift for them- selves, some of them? Am glad to press my way through Miles’s Swamp. Thickets of choke-berry bushes higher than my head, with many of their lower leaves already red, alternating with young birches and raspberry, high blueberry an- dromeda (high and low), and great dense flat beds of Rubus sempervirens. Amid these, perhaps in cool open- ings, stands an island or two of great dark-green high blueberry bushes, with big cool blueberries, though bear- ing but sparingly this year. In a frosty hollow in the woods west of this and of the blackberry field, find a patch of amelanchier, probably oblongifolia (??), full of fruit now in its prime. Com- paring it with the Botryapiwm of the Cliffs, it appears to | be the oblong, being much more obtuse and very little serrate, and not heart-shaped like the Botryapium. It is an open sedge hollow surrounded by woods, with some shrubs in it rising above the sedge which have been killed by frost formerly. Here grows a pretty thick patch of the shad-bush, about a rod and a half long, the bushes about three feet high, and quite interesting now, in fruit. Firm dark-green leaves with short, broad, irregular racemes (cluster-like) of red and dark dull- purplish berries intermixed, making considerable variety in the color, — of peculiar color among our small fruits. The ripest and largest dark-purple berries are just half an inch in diameter. You are surprised and delighted to see this handsome profusion in hollows so dry and usually so barren and bushes commonly so fruitless. These berries are peculiar in that the red are nearly as pleasant-tasted as the more fully ripe dark-purple ones. I think this crop is due to the wetness and cool- ness of the summer. Though an agreeable berry, they are hardly so grate- ful to my palate as huckleberries and blueberries. These conspicuous red — for most are red — [berries] on rather high and thin-leaved bushes, growing open and airy, remind you a little of the wild holly, the berry so contrasts with the dark leaf. Returning, we come through the midst of the nearly quite dry J. P. B.’s Cold Pool. Excepting a little pool in the middle, this is now one great dense bed of Cyperus diandrus, well out, and Juncus Conradi, as I call it, now in prime (together with Juncus acuminatus). The lower and internal part of this bed is yellow, bright- yellow like sedge, 2. e. the cyperus stems and leaves, while the spikes of this and the rest form a soft reddish- brown crust, as it were, over all. Mixed with these over the whole area is literally a myriad of gratiola (say in its prime); a most remarkable sight, — countless yel- low dots, and occasionally you see a perfectly white one among them.

Foggy morning. M. Pratt sends me T'rifoliwm agrarium (a long time out) from a ditch-side on his land, — yellow hop clover. This specimen is two feet high or long. He had not seen it there for some years. Mr. Bradford finds and brings to me what I judge from a plate in Loudon to be Potentilla recta of southern Europe; a long time out. Vide press. I find the base of the plant by the east wall, in the road, about six rods © south of John Flint’s house. I copy this account of P. rectafrom Persoon: “Fol. septenatis quinatisque, foliol. lanceolatis grosse dentatis, petalis obcordatis cal. majoribus, caule erecto. . . . Ad muros et ad agrorum margines. Pet. magna pallida, calyce submajora.”’ This is under his division with digi- tate leaves and a naked receptacle (?), if this is his word.’ But in this the outside of the calyx or receptacle is ~“ shortly pubescent, and the petals are much longer than the calyx. Vide Persoon’s other division.' P. M. — Up Assabet. Decidedly dog-days, and a strong musty scent, not to be wondered at after the copious rains and the heat of yesterday. At mid-afternoon I am caught in another deluging rain’ as I stand under a maple by the shore. Looking on a water surface, you can see as well as hear when it rains very hard. At first we had a considerable shower which but slightly dimpled the water, and I saw the differently shaded or lit currents of the river through it all; but anon it began to rain very hard, and there were a myriad white globules dancing or rebounding an inch or two from the surface, where the big drops fell, and I heard a sound as if it rained pebbles or shot. At this season the sound of a gentler rain than this, 2. e. the sound of the dripping rain on the leaves, which are now dark and hard, yields a dry sound as if the drops struck on paper, but six weeks ago, when the leaves were so yellowish and tender, methinks it was a softer sound, as was the rustling. Now, in the still moonlight, the dark foliage stands almost stiff and dark against the sky. At 5 p. M. the river is nine and seven eighths inches above summer level. We may expect to see any common small-seeded European plant springing up by our roadsides in course of time.

P. M. — To Gliffs. The earliest corn has shed its pollen, say a week or ten days. Rye, wheat, and oats and barley have bloomed, say a month. I stand at the wall-end on the Cliffs and look over the Miles meadow on Conantum. It is an unusually clear day after yesterday’s rain. How much of beauty — of color, as well as form — on which our eyes daily rest goes unperceived by us! No one but a botanist is likely to distinguish nicely the different shades of green with which the open surface of the earth is clothed, — not even a landscape-painter if he does not know the species of sedges and grasses which paint it. With respect to thé color of grass, most of those even who attend peculiarly to the aspects of Nature only observe that it is more or less dark or light, green or brown, or velvety, fresh or parched, etc. But if you are studying grasses you look for another and different beauty, and you find it, in the wonderful variety of color, etc., presented by the various species.

'The wing of the sugar maples is dry and ripe to look at, but the seed end and seed are quite green. I find, as Michaux did, one seed always abortive. P. M. — Up Assabet. The young red maples have sprung up chiefly on the sandy and muddy shores, especially where there is a bay or eddy. At 2 p. M. the river is twelve and seven eighths above summer level, higher than for a long time, on account of the rain of the 31st. Seed of hop-hornbeam not ripe. The button-bush is about in prime, and white lilies con- siderably past prime. Mikania begun, and now, per- haps, the river’s brink is at its height. The black willow down is even yet still seen here and there on the water. The river, being raised three or four inches, looks quite full, and the bur-reed, etc., is floating off in con- * Vide below.

The knotty-rooted cyperus out some days at least.

8.30 a. M. — Start for Monadnock.! Begins to rain at 9 A. M., and rains from time to time thereafter all day, the mountain-top being constantly enveloped in clouds. Notice in Troy much of the cyperinus variety of wool- grass, now done, of various heights. Also, by roadside, the Rabes Cynosbati, with its prickly berries now partly reddened but hardly ripe. Am exhilarated by the pecul- lar raspberry scent by the roadside this wet day — and of the dicksonia fern. Raspberries still quite common, ~ though late. The high blackberries, the mulberry kind, all still green and red; and also on the 9th, except one berry on a rock. There was a little sunshine on our way to the moun- tain, but the cloud extended far down its sides all day, so that one while we mistook Gap Monadnock for the true mountain, which was more to the north. According to the guide-board it is two and one fourth miles from Troy to the first fork in the road near the little pond and schoolhouse, and I should say it was near two miles from there to the summit, — all the way up- hill from the meadow. We crossed the immense rocky and springy pastures, containing at first raspberries, but much more hard- hack in flower, reddening them afar, where cattle and horses collected about us, sometimes came running to us, as we thought for society, but probably not. I told Bent of it, — how they gathered about us, they were so glad to see a human being, — but he said I might put it in my book so, it would do no harm, but then the fact was they came about me for salt. ‘‘ Well,” said I, “it was probably because I had so much salt in my constitu- tion.”’ Said he, “If you had had a little salt with you [you]

The wind changed to northerly toward morning, falling down from over the summit and sweep- ing through our camp, open on that side, and we found it rather cold!