Daisy-like and modest, is not the name the Blue Spring Daisy much more appropriate for this hardy little plant than Robin’s or Poor Robin’s Plantain, by which it is often known? What has it to do with the robin? To be sure it sends forth its stems and blossoms in April when the birds are happiest, yet the robins appear much earlier. Then, too, the robins are not poor, for they are the best cared for among birds. Its flowers are often of a bluish cast, though they may be violet or even nearly white; they appear in the spring and are daisy-like.
ROBIN’S PLANTAIN OR BLUE SPRING DAISY.
(Erigeron pulchellus.)
BLUE VERVAIN OR WILD HYSSOP.
(Verbena hastata.)
FROM “NATURE’S GARDEN”
COPYRIGHT 1900, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
The botanist knows this plant of the hills and banks as one of the species of the genus Erigeron. This name is indicative of one of its characteristics. It is from two Greek words meaning spring and old man. Old man in the springs or early old is an appropriate name, for the young plants are quite hoary and this hairiness remains throughout its life.
The Blue Spring Daisy is not alone, for it has about one hundred and thirty sister species widely distributed throughout the world, but they are more abundant in the Americas, nearly seventy of these occurring in North America.
This unassuming plant frequently grows in large patches, yet does not crowd its fellows; often it grows in localities which the more delicate and brilliant of the early flowers are wont to shun. This may have been the theme which inspired these lines of the poet:
I love the lowly children of the earth!
I linger ’mid their artless ways
To feel their kinship and their fragile worth,
And catch their speechless praise.