Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts 2.djvu/92

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of town, Hedeoma hispida, on a dry bluff-brow, a bright blue flower out, not odorous or like pennyroyal. What the boraginaceous plant, twelve to eighteen inches high, just fairly begun, at Nicollet's Island, and at St. Paul by the roadside, with the smell of hound's tongue? Apparently Psoralea argophylla, now a foot or two high, but not out,—silvery, silky-white all over.


We must be struck with the minute observation and nice description, only made for his own future use, which these botanical notes display. After leaving Minnesota he sums up in a special list, as seen by him at St. Anthony and Minneapolis, what he terms:


PLANTS I KNEW BEFORE, OR WE HAVE

Clematis Virginiana.

Anemone nemorosa; do. Virginiana (common on Nicollet Island or in woods).

Thalictrum dioicum (common, very), do. anemonoides, and Cornuti, common.

Ranunculus Purshii (common); abortivus (very common), recurvatus, common.

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