June 17, 1853. The mountain laurel by Walden 

 in its prime. It is a splendid flower, and more red 

 than that in Mason's pasture.^ Its dry, dead-look- 

 ing, brittle stems, as it were leaning over other 

 bushes or each other, bearing at the ends great dense 

 corymbs five inches in diameter of rose or pink tinged 

 flowers, without an interstice between them, over- 

 lapping each other, each often more than an inch in 

 diameter. A single one of which would be esteemed 

 very beautiful. It is a highlander wandered down 

 into the plain. 



Journal, v, 269, 270. 



^ A single bush of mountain laurel is still to be found in Mason's pas- 

 ture, but with the exception of where it has been planted for the adorn- 

 ment of private estates the mountain laurel in Concord (as Thoreau says 

 in another place) is "as rare as poetry." H. W. G. 



