When winter, with its blasting, icy hand, has touched every green thing
exposed to its wantonness, and Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and
other feast days call loudly for the festive greenery with which to
adorn churches, halls and dwellings, longing eyes are turned towards the
Southland, where King Winter’s scepter is unknown and green things
flourish the year around.
A walk through the dark hummuck woods—so dark that owls overhead hoot at
one in the daytime—holds the naturalist and the florist spell-bound.
The numerous varieties of chirping and twittering birds, the many-hued
spiders, lizards, bugs and beetles, and, yes, the wriggling snakes, with
now and then the sounds of snarling ’coons or ’possums, the scream of a
wild-cat, or the dashing by of the deer suddenly aroused from his noon
siesta—all this makes the naturalist feel as though he had entered into
an enchanted land; but he who loves “the green things growing” more than
the things flying, creeping or snarling will feast his eyes on the ever
varying verdure.
Tall palmettos, wide-spreading oaks, orchids, trailing vines and
festooning mosses sweeping the greener mosses beneath, ferns,
lilies!—but, ’twould fill a volume to enumerate the many beauties which
meet the eye at even a single glance, each plant and flower in itself
being worthy of a chapter.
There is one plant which especially attracts our attention and
admiration; and this plant is one of the prettiest and most useful of
the greeneries used for decorations in the far north in winter. It is
called, variously, “Comptie,” “Coontie,” “Starch-root,” or
“Indian-bread.” The two latter names are due to its large, bulbous root,
which, when grated, makes a good starch, and which was also made, by the
primitive Indians, into ash-cake, or bread—as Indians knew bread.
It is fern-like; but, unlike most ferns, it is of a sturdy, independent
growth, bearing handling as well as cedar, yet with all the graceful
pliancy of the more tender ferns. Its stems grow two or three feet long;
the fronds on each side of the stem being three or four inches in
length, and of a glossy dark green color. From one to two dozen such
stems put out from a single stalk, growing up into the most graceful
curves.
Seeds, deep crimson in color, and of the size of a chestnut, form in the
center of the plant, and so compactly as to present one continuous
bulbous form, the size and shape of a round quart bottle with part of
its neck broken off. This crimson seed-form, surrounded by the dark
green foliage, is, of itself, a pretty curiosity, more novel than a
flower.
The reason why it is especially valued for decorations is, because it
can be had at all seasons of the year, and retains its verdure for
several weeks, even after it has been shipped long distances. Many of
these plants, cut close to the ground, have been shipped from Florida to
Canada, and have retained their fresh, glossy appearance for two months.
Even without placing the stems in water, using them for motto work, they
will last two or three weeks.
And this is but one of Florida’s novelties in plant life.
Mary Stratner.