Vide “Voyages Round the World since Cook.”
The author of the article on Orchids in the Eclectic says that “a single plant produced three different flowers of genera previously supposed to be quite distinct.”
Saw the first wild rose to-day on the west side of the railroad causeway. The whiteweed has suddenly appeared, and the clover gives whole fields a rich and florid appearance,—the rich red and the sweet-scented white. The fields are blushing with the red species as the western sky at evening. The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up to heaven. And the yarrow, with its persistent dry stalks and heads, is now ready to blossom again. The dry stems and heads of last year’s tansy stand high above the new green leaves.
I sit in the shade of the pines to hear a wood thrush at noon. The ground smells of dry leaves; the heat is oppressive. The bird begins on a low strain, i. e. it first delivers a strain on a lower key, then a moment after another a little higher, then another still varied from the others,—no two successive strains alike, but either ascending or descending. He confines himself to his few notes, in which he is unrivalled, as if his kind had learned this and no more anciently.
I perceive, as formerly, a white froth dripping from the pitch pines, just at the base of the new shoots. It has no taste. The pollywogs in the pond are now full-tailed. The hickory leaves are blackened by a recent frost, which reminds me that this is near their northern limit.
It is remarkable the rapidity with which the grass grows. The 25th of May I walked to the hills in Wayland, and when I returned across lots do not remember that I had much occasion to think of the grass, or to go round any fields to avoid treading on it; but just a week afterward, at Worcester, it was high and waving in the fields, and I was to some extent confined to the road; and the same was the case here. Apparently in one month you get from fields which you can cross without hesitation, to haying time. It has grown you hardly know when, be the weather what it may, sunshine or storm. I start up a solitary woodcock in the shade, in some copse; goes off with a startled, rattling, hurried note.
After walking by night several times I now walk by day, but I am not aware of any crowning advantage in it. I see small objects better, but it does not enlighten me any. The day is more trivial.
What a careful gardener Nature is! She does not let the sun come out suddenly with all his intensity after rain and cloudy weather, but graduates the change to suit the tenderness of plants.
I see the tall crowfoot now in the meadows (Ranunculus acris), with a smooth stem. I do not notice the bulbosus, which was so common a fortnight ago. The rose-colored flowers of the Kalmia angustifolia, lambkill, just opened and opening. The Convallaria bifolia growing stale in the woods. The Hieracium venosum, veiny-leaved hawkweed, with its yellow blossoms in the woodland path. The Hypoxis erecta, yellow Bethlehem-star, where there is a thick, wiry grass in open paths; should be called yellow-eyed grass, methinks. The Pyrola asarifolia, with its pagoda-like stem of flowers, i. e. broad-leaved wintergreen. The Trientalis Americana, like last, in the woods, with its star-like white flower and pointed whorled leaves. The prunella too is in blossom, and the rather delicate Thesium umbellatum, a white flower. The Solomon’s-seal, with a greenish drooping raceme of flowers at the top, I do not identify.
I notice to-day the same remarkable bushy growth on the fir (in Wheildon’s garden) that I have noticed on the pines and cedars. The leaves are not so thickly set and are much stiffer.