in Thoreau’s Journal:
The Soapwort gentian out abundantly in Flints-Bridge-Lane-ap. for a week—a surprisingly deep faintly purplish blue. Crowded bunches of 10 or a dozen sessile & closed narrow or oblong diamond or sharp dome-shape flowers— The whole bunch like many sharp domes of an oriental city crowded together.
I have here actually drawn my pen round one.
It is the flowering of the sky. The sky has descended & kissed the earth. In (at top) a whorl of clear smooth rich green leaves. Why come these blue flowers thus late in the year. A dome-like crowd of domelets.
Now is the season for those comparatively rare but beautiful wild berries which are not food for man— If we so industriously collect those berries which are sweet to the palate—it is strange that we do not devote an hour in the year to gathering those which are beautiful to the eye. It behoves me to go a berrying in this sense once a year at least—
berries which are as beautiful as flowers, but far less known—the fruit of the flower—to fill my basket with the neglected but beautiful fruit of the various species of cornels & viburnums—poke—arum medeoloas, thorn &c—
allandibiase.com 