The charge that was long ago made against our wild flowers by
English travelers in this country, namely, that they are odorless,
doubtless had its origin in the fact that, whereas in England the
sweet-scented flowers are among the most common and conspicuous, in
this country they are rather shy and withdrawn, and consequently
not such as travelers would be likely to encounter. Moreover, the
British traveler, remembering the deliciously fragrant blue violets
he left at home, covering every grassy slope and meadow bank in
spring, and the wild clematis, or traveler's joy, overrunning
hedges and old walls with its white, sweet-scented blossoms, and
finding the corresponding species here equally abundant but
entirely scentless, very naturally infers that our wild flowers are
all deficient in this respect. He would be confirmed in this
opinion when, on turning to some of our most beautiful and striking
native flowers, like the laurel, the rhododendron, the columbine,
the inimitable fringed gentian, the burning cardinal-flower, or our
asters and goldenrod, dashing the roadsides with tints of purple
and gold, he found them scentless also. "Where are your fragrant
flowers?" he might well say; "I can find none." Let him look
closer and penetrate our forests, and visit our ponds and lakes.
Let him compare our matchless, rosy-lipped, honey-hearted trailing
arbutus with his own ugly ground-ivy; let him compare our
sumptuous, fragrant pond-lily with his own odorless NYMPHÆ ALBA.
In our Northern woods he will find the floors carpeted with the
delicate linnæa, its twin rose-colored, nodding flowers filling the
air with fragrance. (I am aware that the linnæa is found in some
parts of Northern Europe.) The fact is, we perhaps have as many
sweet-scented wild flowers as Europe has, only they are not quite
so prominent in our flora, nor so well known to our people or to
our poets.