Thoreau writes in his journal:
By way of the linnæ, which I find is not yet out. That thick pine wood is full of birds. Saw a large moth or butterfly exactly like a decayed withered leaf,—a rotten yellowish or buff. The small-leaved pyrola will open in a day or two. Two or three ripe strawberries on the south slope of a drv hill. I was thinking that they had set, when, seeking a more favorable slope, I found ripe fruit The painted-cup is in its prime. It reddens the meadow,—Painted-Cup Meadow. It is a splendid show of brilliant scarlet, the color of the cardinal flower, and surpassing it in mass and profusion. They first appear on the side of the hill in drier ground, half a dozen inches high, and their color is most striking then, when it is most rare and precious; but they now cover the meadow, mingled with buttercups, etc., and manv are more than eighteen inches high. I do not like the name; it does not remind me of a cup, rather of a flame, when it first appears. It might be called flame-flower, or scarlet-tip.