Part 41

NOTE.—The flowers of the American Woodbine and of the Fly Honeysuckle (p. 228), and of the Golden Corydalis (p. 192) are also yellow.

III PINK

TRAILING ARBUTUS. MAYFLOWER. GROUND LAUREL. Epigæa repens. Heath Family.

Stem.—With rusty hairs, prostrate or trailing. Leaves.—Rounded, heart-shaped at base, evergreen. Flowers.—Pink, clustered, fragrant. Calyx.—Of five sepals. Corolla.—Five-lobed, salver-shaped, with a slender tube which is hairy within. Stamens.—Ten. Pistil.—One, with a five-lobed stigma.

Pink, small, and punctual, Aromatic, low,

describes, but does scant justice to the trailing arbutus, whose waxy blossoms and delicious breath are among the earliest prophecies of perfume-laden summer. We look for these flowers in April—not beneath the snow—where tradition rashly locates them—but under the dead brown leaves of last year; and especially among the pines and in light sandy soil. Appearing as they do when we are eager for some tangible assurance that

—the Spring comes slowly up this way,

they win from many of us the gladdest recognition of the year.

In New England they are called Mayflowers, being peddled about the streets of Boston every spring, under the suggestive and loudly emphasized title of “Ply-y-mouth Ma-ayflowers!” Whether they owe this name to the ship which is responsible for so much, or to their season of blooming, in certain localities, might remain an open question had we not the authority of Whittier for attributing it to both causes. In a note prefacing “The Mayflowers,” the poet says: “The trailing arbutus or Mayflower grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower to greet the Pilgrims after their fearful winter.” In the poem itself he wonders what the old ship had

Within her ice-rimmed bay In common with the wild-wood flowers, The first sweet smiles of May?

and continues—

Yet “God be praised!” the Pilgrim said, Who saw the blossoms peer Above the brown leaves, dry and dead, “Behold our Mayflower here!”

God wills it, here our rest shall be, Our years of wandering o’er, For us the Mayflower of the sea Shall spread her sails no more.

O sacred flowers of faith and hope, As sweetly now as then, Ye bloom on many a birchen slope, In many a pine-dark glen.

· · · · ·

So live the fathers in their sons, Their sturdy faith be ours, And ours the love that overruns Its rocky strength with flowers.

If the poet’s fancy was founded on fact, and if our lovely and wide-spread Mayflower was indeed the first blossom noted and christened by our forefathers, it seems as though the problem of a national flower must be solved by one so lovely and historic as to silence all dispute. And when we read the following prophetic stanzas which close the poem, showing that during another dark period in our nation’s history these brave little blossoms, struggling through the withered leaves, brought a message of hope and courage to the heroic heart of the Quaker poet, our feeling that they are peculiarly identified with our country’s perilous moments is intensified:

The Pilgrim’s wild and wintry day At shadow round us draws; The Mayflower of his stormy bay Our Freedom’s struggling cause.

But warmer suns erelong shall bring To life the frozen sod; And, through dead leaves of hope shall spring Afresh the flowers of God!

PLATE LXI

TRAILING ARBUTUS.—E. repens.

TWIN-FLOWER.—L. borealis. ]

TWIN-FLOWER. Linnæa borealis. Honeysuckle Family.

Stem.—Slender, creeping and trailing. Leaves.—Rounded, shining and evergreen. Flowers.—Growing in pairs, delicate pink, fragrant, nodding on thread-like, upright flower-stalks. Calyx.—Five-toothed. Corolla.—Narrowly bell-shaped, five-lobed, hairy within. Stamens.—Four, two shorter than the others. Pistil.—One.

Whoever has seen

—beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, The slight Linnæa hang its twin-born heads,

will not soon forget the exquisite carpeting made by its nodding pink flowers and dark shining leaves; or the delicious perfume which actually filled the air and drew one’s attention to the spot from which it was exhaled, tempting one to exclaim with Richard Jefferies, “Sweetest of all things is wild-flower air!” That this little plant should have been selected as “the monument of the man of flowers” by the great Linnæus himself, bears testimony to his possession of that appreciation of the beautiful which is supposed to be lacking in men of long scientific training. I believe that there is extant at least one contemporary portrait of Linnæus in which he wears the tiny flowers in his buttonhole. The rosy twin-blossoms are borne on thread-like, forking flower-stalks, and appear in June in the deep, cool, mossy woods of the North.

SHOWY ORCHIS. Orchis spectabilis. Orchis Family (p. 17).