A Flora of Concord from Thoreau’s Time to the Present Day
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
October 29, 1972
On this day, The Berkshire Eagle published a revealing article about Henry David Thoreau [pronounced: THOR-oh] titled "Thoreau: The Amateur Botanist."
The piece, penned by Wayne Hanley, drew heavily from the insights of respected naturalist Richard Jefferson Eaton of Barnstable, Massachusetts.
While many know Thoreau as the philosophical voice behind Walden, his personal journals tell a different story - one of a man gradually surrendering to the precise and methodical world of botanical science.
As Eaton noted in his book A Flora of Concord, Thoreau's transformation from philosopher to botanist was both reluctant and profound.
By 1852, Thoreau's journal entries began showing signs of internal struggle - the philosopher expressing alarm at his growing scientific tendencies.
Yet by 1857, botany had won its place in his heart, achieving what Eaton called "intellectual status and emotional acceptance."
Thoreau's sister Sophia played a pivotal role in this transformation, gently nudging her brother toward a more scientific approach to his beloved natural world.
Thoreau's botanical expeditions gradually became increasingly sophisticated - whether scaling Mount Wachusett or exploring Cape Cod's shores.
For his trip to Mount Monadnock in August 1860, Thoreau packed like a true botanist: microscope, plant press, blotting paper, and his trusted copy of Gray's Manual.
Fittingly, on this very day in 1858, Thoreau wrote words that bridge his philosophical and botanical minds:
Nature now, like an athlete, begins to strip herself in earnest for her contest with her great antagonist Winter.
In the bare trees and twigs what a display of muscle!
As autumn strips our gardens bare, we might take a page from Thoreau's journal - learning to see both the poetry and the precise science in every falling leaf.
