A year among the trees

by Wilson Flagg

The Swamp Honeysuckle is one of the most interesting of the New England flowering shrubs, and a very well known species. It comes into flower about the first of July, and is recognized by its fragrance,—resembling that of the marvel of Peru,—by the similarity of its flowers to those of the woodbine, and their glutinous surface. It is found only in wet places, and delights in suspending its flowers over a gently flowing stream, the brink of a pool, or the margin of a pond, blending its odors with those of water-lilies, and borrowing a charm from the reflection of its own beauty on the surface of the still water. Though it bears no fruit, every rambler in the woods is grateful for the perfume it sheds around him while wandering in quest of its flowers. These are extremely delicate in texture and closely resemble those of the common white honeysuckle or woodbine of our gardens, not only in their general shape, but also in the appearance of several wilted flowers in the same cluster with perfect flowers and buds. A pulpy excrescence is often attached to this plant, which is familiarly known by the name of “swamp apple.” It is slightly acidulous and sweet, and, though nearly insipid, is not disagreeable in flavor.

A more beautiful but less common species, with pale crimson flowers, is found in certain localities, that tends to multiply into varieties. It is a smaller shrub than the white Azalea, and does not show the same preference for wet places. All the species are more remarkable for their flowers than their foliage, which is of a pale glaucous green and small in quantity.

THE CANADIAN RHODORA.

In the latter part of May, when the early spring flowers are just beginning to fade, and when the leaves of the forest trees are sufficiently expanded to display all the tints attending the infancy of their growth, no plant attracts more admiration than the Canadian Rhodora. The flowers, of a purple crimson, are in umbels on the ends of the branches, appearing before the leaves. The corolla, consisting of long narrow petals, very deeply cleft, the stamens on slender hairy filaments, and the projecting style, resemble tufts of colored silken fringe. The Rhodora is from two to six feet in height, and is one of the most conspicuous ornaments of wet, bushy pastures in this part of the country. It is the last in the train of the delicate flowers of spring, and by its glowing hues indicates the coming of a brighter vegetation. When other shrubs of different species are only half covered with foliage, the Rhodora spreads out its flowers upon the surface of the variegated ground, in plats and clumps of irregular sizes, and sheds a checkered glow of crimson over whole acres of moor. The poets have said but little of this flower because it wants individuality. We look upon the blossoms of the Rhodora as we look upon the crimsoned clouds, admiring their general glow, not the cast of single flowers. But there is something very poetical in the rosy wreaths it affixes to the brows of Nature, still pallid with the long confinement of winter.

CATKINS OF WILLOW.

THE WILLOW.

The Willow is of all trees the most celebrated in romance and romantic history. Its habit of growing by the sides of lakes and rivers, and of spreading its long branches over wells in solitary pastures, has given it a peculiar significance in poetry as the accompaniment of pastoral scenes, and renders it one of the most interesting objects in landscape. Hence there is hardly a song of nature, a rustic lay of shepherds, a Latin eclogue, or any descriptive poem, that does not make frequent mention of the Willow. The piping sounds from wet places in the spring of the year, the songs of the earliest birds, and the hum of bees when they first go abroad after their winter’s rest, are all delightfully associated with this tree. We breathe the perfume of its flowers before the meadows are spangled with violets, and when the crocus has just appeared in the gardens; and its early bloom makes it a conspicuous object when it comes forth under an April sky, gleaming with a drapery of golden verdure among the still naked trees of the forest and orchard.

When Spring has closed her delicate flowers, and the multitudes that crowd around the footsteps of May have yielded their places to the brighter host of June, the Willow scatters the golden aments that adorned it, and appears in the deeper garniture of its own green foliage. The hum of insects is no longer heard among the boughs in quest of honey, but the notes of the phebe and the summer yellow-bird, that love to nestle in their spray, may be heard from their green shelter on all summer noons. The fresh and peculiar incense of the peat-meadows, with their purple beds of cranberry-vines and wild strawberries, the glistening of still waters, and the sight of little fishes that gambol in their clear depths, are circumstances that accompany the Willow, and magnify our pleasure on beholding it, either in a picture or real landscape. We prize the Willow for its material qualities no more than for its poetic relations; for it is not only the beauty of a tree, but the scenes with which it is allied, and the ideas and images it awakens in the mind, that make up its attractions.

The very name of this tree brings to mind at once a swarm of images, rural, poetical, and romantic. There is a softness in the sound of Willow that accords with the delicacy of its foliage and the flexibility of its slender branches. The syllables of this word must have been prompted by the mellow tones which are produced by the wind when gliding through its airy spray. Writers of romance have always assigned the Willow to youthful lovers, as affording the most appropriate arbor for their rustic vows, which would seem to acquire a peculiar sacredness when spoken under the shade of the most poetical of all trees.