The LINNAEA BOREALIS, or two horned Linnaea, though a simple Lapland
flower, is interesting to all botanists from its association with the
name of the Swedish Sage. It has pretty little bells and is very
fragrant. It is a wild, unobtrusive plant and is very averse to the
trim lawn and the gay flower-border. This little woodland beauty pines
away under too much notice. She prefers neglect, and would rather waste
her sweetness on the desert air, than be introduced into the fashionable
lists of Florist's flowers. She shrinks from exposure to the sun. A
gentleman after walking with Linnaeus on the shores of the lake near
Charlottendal on a lovely evening, writes thus "I gathered a small
flower and asked if it was the _Linnaea borealis_. 'Nay,' said the
philosopher, 'she lives not here, but in the middle of our largest
woods. She clings with her little arms to the moss, and seems to resist
very gently if you force her from it. She has a complexion like a
milkmaid, and ah! she is very, very sweet and agreeable!"