Thoreau writes in his journal:
A week or two ago I brought home a handsome pitch pine cone which had recently fallen and was closed perfectly tight. It was put into a table drawer. To-day I am agreeably surprised to find that it has there dried and opened with perfect regularity, filing the drawer, and from a solid, narrow, and sharp cone, has become a broad, rounded one.
Thoreau writes in his journal on 6 March:
Last Sunday I plucked some alder (apparently speckled) twigs, some (apparently tremuloides) aspen, and some swamp (?) willow and put them in water in a warm room (Journal, 5:5).
