Ella Partridge had a tall Laburnum tree at her front door; it peeped in the second-story windows. It was so cherished, that I doubt whether its blooms were ever gathered. She told us with conscious pride and rectitude that it was a "yellow Wistaria tree which came from China"; I saw no reason to doubt her words, and as I never chanced to speak to my parents about it, I ever thought of it as a yellow Wistaria tree until I went out into the world and found it was a Scotch Laburnum.
Few garden owners plant now the Snowberry, Symphoricarpus racemosus, once seen in every front yard, and even used for hedges. It wasn't a very satisfactory shrub in its habit; the oval leaves were not a cheerful green, and were usually pallid with mildew. The flowers were insignificant, but the clusters of berries were as pure as pearls. In country homes, before the days of cheap winter flowers and omnipresent greenhouses, these snowy clusters were cherished to gather in winter to place on coffins and in hands as white and cold as the berries. Its special offence in our garden was partly on account of this funereal association, but chiefly because we were never permitted to gather its berries to string into necklaces. They were rigidly preserved on the stem as a garden decoration in winter; though they were too closely akin in color to the encircling snowdrifts to be of any value.
In country homes in olden times were found several universal winter posies. On the narrow mantel shelves of farm and village parlors, both in England and America, still is seen a winter posy made of dried stalks of the seed valves of a certain flower; they are shown on the [opposite page]. Let us see how our old friend, Gerarde, describes this plant:—
"The stalkes are loden with many flowers like the stocke-gilliflower, of a purple colour, which, being fallen, the seede cometh foorthe conteined in a flat thinne cod, with a sharp point or pricke at one end, in fashion of the moone, and somewhat blackish. This cod is composed of three filmes or skins whereof the two outermost are of an overworne ashe colour, and the innermost, or that in the middle whereon the seed doth hang or cleave, is thin and cleere shining, like a piece of white satten newly cut from the peece."
In the latter clause of this striking description is given the reason for the popular name of the flower, Satin-flower or White Satin, for the inner septum is a shining membrane resembling white satin. Another interesting name is Pricksong-flower. All who have seen sheets of music of Elizabethan days, when the notes of music were called pricks, and the whole sheet a pricksong, will readily trace the resemblance to the seeds of this plant.
Gerarde says it was named "Penny-floure, Money-floure, Silver-plate, Sattin, and among our women called Honestie." The last name was commonly applied at the close of the eighteenth century. It is thus named in writings of Rev. William Hanbury, 1771, and a Boston seedsman then advertised seeds of Honestie "in small quantities, that all might have some." In 1665, Josselyn found White Satin planted and growing plentifully in New England gardens, where I am sure it formed, in garden and house, a happy reminder of their English homes to the wives of the colonists. Since that time it has spread so freely in some localities, especially in southern Connecticut, that it grows wild by the wayside. It is seldom seen now in well-kept gardens, though it should be, for it is really a lovely flower, showing from white to varied and rich light purples. I was charmed with its fresh beauty this spring in the garden of Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright; a photograph of one of her borders containing Honesty is shown [opposite page 174].
Money-in-both-pockets.
At Belvoir Castle in England, in the "Duchess's Garden," the Satin-flower can be seen in full variety of tint, and fills an important place. It is carefully cultivated by seed and division, all inferior plants being promptly destroyed, while the superior blossoms are cherished.