I have often tried to define to myself the scent of the Calycanthus blooms; they have an aromatic fragrance somewhat like the ripest Pineapples of the tropics, but still richer; how I love to carry them in my hand, crushed and warm, occasionally holding them tight over my mouth and nose to fill myself with their perfume. The leaves have a similar, but somewhat varied and sharper, scent, and the woody stems another; the latter I like to nibble. This flower has an element of mystery in it—that indescribable quality felt by children, and remembered by prosaic grown folk. Perhaps its curious dark reddish brown tint may have added part of the queerness, since the "Mourning Bride," similar in color, has a like mysterious association. I cannot explain these qualities to any one not a garden-bred child; and as given in the chapter entitled The Mystery of Flowers, they will appear to many, fanciful and unreal—but I have a fraternity who will understand, and who will know that it was this same undefinable quality that made a branch of Strawberry bush, or a handful of its stemless blooms, a gift significant of interest and intimacy; we would not willingly give Calycanthus blossoms to a child we did not like, or to a stranger.
Hawthorn Arch at Holly House, Peace Dale, Rhode Island. Home of Rowland G. Hazard, Esq.
A rare perfume floats from the modest yellow Flowering Currant. I do not see this sweet and sightly shrub in many modern gardens, and it is our loss. The crowding bees are goodly and cheerful, and the flowers are pleasant, but the perfume is of the sort you can truly say you love it; its aroma is like some of the liqueurs of the old monks.
The greatest pleasure in flower perfumes comes to us through the first flowers of spring. How we breathe in their sweetness! Our native wild flowers give us the most delicate odors. The Mayflower is, I believe, the only wild flower for which all country folk of New England have a sincere affection; it is not only a beautiful, an enchanting flower, but it is so fresh, so balmy of bloom. It has the delicacy of texture and form characteristic of many of our native spring blooms, Hepatica, Anemone, Spring Beauty, Polygala.
The Arethusa was one of the special favorites of my father and mother, who delighted in its exquisite fragrance. Hawthorne said of it: "One of the delicatest, gracefullest, and in every manner sweetest of the whole race of flowers. For a fortnight past I have found it in the swampy meadows, growing up to its chin in heaps of wet moss. Its hue is a delicate pink, of various depths of shade, and somewhat in the form of a Grecian helmet."
It pleases me to fancy that Hawthorne was like the Arethusa, that it was a fit symbol of the nature of our greatest New England genius. Perfect in grace and beauty, full of sentiment, classic and elegant of shape, it has a shrinking heart; the sepals and petals rise over it and shield it, and the whole flower is shy and retiring, hiding in marshes and quaking bogs.
It is one of our flowers which we ever regard singly, as an individual, a rare and fine spirit; we never think of it as growing in an expanse or even in groups. This lovely flower has, as Landor said of the flower of the vine, "a scent so delicate that it requires a sigh to inhale it."