in Thoreau’s Journal:

I presume if I am the wiser for having lived this season through, such plants will emblazon the truth of my experience over the face of nature, and I shall be aware of a beauty and sweetness there. Has not the mind, too, its harvest? Do not some scarlet leaves of thought come scatteringly down, though it may be prematurely, some which, perchance, the summer’s drought has ripened, and the rain loosened? Are there no purple reflections from the culms of thought in my mind?

culm | kəlm |noun

the hollow stem of a grass or cereal plant, especially that bearing the flower.

Photo: August 29, 2018 on Diamond Ledge Road, Sandwich, NH