the Thoreau Log.
23 November 1857. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Walked through Gowing’s Swamp from west to east. You may say it is divided into three parts,—first, the thin woody; second, the coarse bushy or gray; and third, the fine bushy or brown.

   First: The trees are larch, white birch, red maple, spruce, white pine, etc.

  Second: The coarse bushy part, or blueberry thicket, consists of high blueberry, panicled andromeda, Amelanchier Canadensis var. oblongifolia, swamp-pink, choke-berry, Viburnum nudum, rhodora, (and probably prinos, holly, etc., etc., not distinguishable easily now), but chiefly the first two. Much of the blueberry being dead gives it a very gray as well as scraggy aspect. It is a very bad thicket to break through, yet there are commonly, thinner places, or often opens, by which you may wind your way about the denser clumps. Small specimens of the trees are mingled with these and also some water andromeda and lambkill.

  Third: There are the smooth brown and wetter spaces where the water andromeda chiefly prevails, together with purplish lambkill about the sides of them, and hairy huckleberry . . .

(Journal, 10:195-199)

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