The charge that was long ago made against our wild flowers by English
travelers in this country, namely, that they were 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they are rather shy and withdrawn, and consequently not such as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
inferred that our wild flowers were 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
_Nymphæa alba_. In our Northern woods he shall 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.