A eupatorium from Hubbard’s Bridge causeway answers to E. purpureum, except in these doubtful points, that the former has four leaves in a whorl, is unequally serrate, the stem is nearly filled with a thin pith, the corymb is not merely terminal, florets eight and nine. Differs from verticillatum in the stem being not solid, and I perceive no difference between calyx and corolla in color, if I know what the two are. It may be one of the intermediate varieties referred to.
Aug. 15. Friday. Hypericum Canadense, Canadian St. John’s-wort, distinguished by its red capsules. The petals shine under the microscope, as if they had a golden dew on them.
Cnicus pumilus, pasture thistle. How many insects a single one attracts! While you sit by it, bee after bee will visit it, and busy himself probing for honey and loading himself with pollen, regardless of your overshadowing presence. He sees its purple flower from afar, and that use there is in its color.
Oxalis stricta, upright wood-sorrel, the little yellow ternate-leaved flower in pastures and corn-fields.
Sagittaria sagittifolia, or arrowhead. It has very little root that I can find to eat.
Campanula crinoides, var. 2nd, slender bellflower, vine-like like a galium, by brook-side in Depot Field.
Impatiens, noli-me-tangere, or touch-me-not, with its dangling yellow pitchers or horns of plenty, which I have seen for a month by damp causeway thickets, but the whole plant was so tender and drooped so soon I could not get it home.
May I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever invented. May I never let the vestal fire go out in my recesses.
Aug. 16. Agrimonia Eupatoria, small-flowered (yellow) plant with hispid fruit, two or three feet high, Turnpike, at Tuttle’s peat meadow. Hemp (Cannabis sativa), said by Gray to have been introduced; not named by Bigelow. Is it not a native?
It is true man can and does live by preying on other animals, but this is a miserable way of sustaining himself, and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race, along with Prometheus and Christ, who shall teach men to live on a more innocent and wholesome diet. Is it not already acknowledged to be a reproach that man is a carnivorous animal?[283]