Thoreau writes in his journal:
P.M.—To Flint’s Pond, down railroad . . . What is that long-leaved green plant in the brook in Hosmer’s meadow on the Turnpike? The buttercup leaves appear everywhere when the ground is bare . . . As I go up Bare Hill, there being only snow enough there to whiten the ground, the last years’ stems of the blueberry (vacillans) give a pink tinge to the hillside, reminding me of red snow, though they do not semble it. I am surprised to see Flint’s Pond a quarter part open,—the middle. Walden, which froze much later, is nowhere open. But Flint’s feels the wind and is shallow . . . I found some barberry sprouts where the bushes had been cut down not long since, and they were covered with small withered leaves beset with stiff prickles on their edges, and you could see the thorns, as it were gradually passing into leaves, being, as one stage, the nerves of the leaf alone,—starlike and branched thorns, gradually, as you descended the stem, getting some pulp between them. I suppose it was owing to the shortening them in. I still pick chestnuts. Some larger ones proved to contain double meats . . . I saw to-day, where a creeping juniper had been burnt, radical leaves of johnswort, thistle, clover, dandelion, etc., as well as sorrel and veronica.
Concord, Mass. William Ellery Channing writes in his journal:
Walden shore to-day in all its festive dress of sunlight, ice, & snow . . . A large piece of Flint’s pond is open. Handsome winter berry. [Burnt house?]. H. D. T. came over . . . Abnormal barberry leaves, thorny on edges. Sorrel, buttercup, Johnswort, clover, & thistle leaves . . . Gathered some chestnuts to-day. Flint’s pond open for perhaps 20 acres.
(William Ellery Channing notebooks and journals. Houghton Library, Harvard University)
