in Thoreau’s Journal:

On Conantum Cliffs whose seams dip to the NW at an angle of 50º (?) and run NE and SW I find today for the first time the early saxifrage saxifrage vernalis in blossom—growing high and dry in the narrow seams where there is no soil for it but a little green moss.—

following thus early after the bare rock—it is one of the first flowers not one in the spring of the year but in the spring of the world.—It an take advantage of a perpendicular cliff where the snow cannot lie & fronting the S.

In exactly the same places grows the columbine…

April 21, 2016:  Photos on a local cliff, Sandwich, New Hampshire