Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth

by Alice Morse Earle

In driving along our New England roads I am ever reminded of Parkinson's dictum that "Spurge once planted will hardly be got rid out again." For by every decaying old house, in every deserted garden, and by the roadside where houses may have been, grows and spreads this Cypress Spurge. I know a large orchard in Narragansett from which grass has wholly vanished; it has been crowded out by the ugly little plant, which has even invaded the adjoining woods.

I wonder why every one in colonial days planted it, for it is said to be poisonous in its contact to some folks, and virulently poisonous to eat—though I am sure no one ever wanted to eat it. The colonists even brought it over from England, when we had here such lovely native plants. It seldom flowers. Old New England names for it are Love-in-a-huddle and Seven Sisters; not over significant, but of interest, as folk-names always are.

I join with Dr. Forbes Watson in finding the Nigella uncanny. It has a half-spidery look, that seems ungracious in a flower. Its names are curious: Love-in-a-mist, Love-in-a-puzzle, Love-in-a-tangle, Puzzle-love, Devil-in-a-bush, Katherine-flowers—another of the many allusions to St. Katherine and her wheel; and the persistent styles do resemble the spokes of a wheel. A name given it in a cottage garden in Wayland was Blue Spider-flower, which seems more suited than that of Spiderwort for the Tradescantia. Spiderwort, like all "three-cornered" flowers, is a flower of mystery; and so little cared for to-day that it is almost extinct in our gardens, save where it persists in out-of-the-way spots. A splendid clump of it is here shown, which grows still in the Worcester garden I so loved in my childhood. In this plant the old imagined tracings of spider's legs in the leaves can scarce be seen. With the fanciful notion of "like curing like" ever found in old medical recipes, Gerarde says, vaguely, the leaves are good for "the Bite of that Great Spider," a creature also of mystery.

Perhaps if the clear blue flowers kept open throughout the day, the Spiderwort would be more tolerated, for this picture certainly has a Japanesque appearance, and what we must acknowledge was far more characteristic of old-time flowers than of many new ones, a wonderful individuality; there was no sameness of outline. I could draw the outline of a dozen blossoms of our modern gardens, and you could not in a careless glance distinguish one from the other: Cosmos, Anemone japonica, single Dahlias, and Sunflowers, Gaillardia, Gazanias, all such simple Rose forms.

Love-in-a-mist.

There was a quaint and mysterious annual in ancient gardens, called Shell flower, or Molucca Balm, which is not found now even on seedsmen's special lists of old-fashioned plants. The flower was white, pink-tipped, and set in a cup-shaped calyx an inch long, which was bigger than the flower itself. The plant stood two or three feet high, and the sweet-scented flowers were in whorls of five or six on a stem. It is a good example of my assertion that the old flowers had queerer shapes than modern ones, and were made of queer materials; the calyx of this Shell flower is of such singular quality and fibre.

The Dog-tooth Violet always had to me a sickly look, but its leaves give it its special offensiveness; all spotted leaves, or flower petals which showed the slightest resemblance to the markings of a snake or lizard, always filled me with dislike. Among them I included Lungwort (Pulmonaria), a flower which seems suddenly to have disappeared from many gardens, even old-fashioned ones, just as it has disappeared from medicine. Not a gardener could be found in our public parks in New York who had ever seen it, or knew it, though there is in Prospect Park a well-filled and noteworthy "Old-fashioned Garden." Let me add, in passing, that nothing in the entire park system—greenhouses, water gardens, Italian gardens—affords such delight to the public as this old-fashioned garden.

The changing blue and pink flowers of the Lungwort, somewhat characteristic of its family, are curious also. This plant was also known by the singular name of Joseph-and-Mary; the pink flowers being the emblem of Joseph; the blue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Lady's-tears was an allied name, from a legend that the Virgin Mary's tears fell on the leaves, causing the white spots to grow in them, and that one of her blue eyes became red from excessive weeping. It was held to be unlucky even to destroy the plant. Soldier-and-his-wife also had reference to the red and blue tints of the flower.