SWEET BALSAM 



Stamens within. The little florets are densely and 

 safely packed in abundant pappus. The fragrance 

 of the plant is one of the most persistent, pervading, 

 and delightful of outdoor odors. One often sees a 

 field white with these fragrant 

 blossoms. 



Oliver Wendell Holmes in 

 "Autocrat of the Breakfast 

 Table," writes of the plant: 



(< 



' Perhaps the herb Everlasting, the 

 fragrant immortelle of our autumn 

 fields has the most suggestive odor 

 to me of all those that set me dream- 

 ing. I can hardly describe the strange 

 thoughts and emotions that come to 

 me as I inhale the aroma of its pale, 

 dry, rustling flowers. A something 

 it has of sepulchral spicery, as if it 

 had been brought from the core of 

 some great pyramid, where it had 

 lain on the breast of a mummied 

 Pharaoh. Something, too, of immor- 

 tality in the sad, faint sweetness 

 lingering so long in its lifeless petals. 

 Yet this does not tell me why it fills 

 my eyes with tears and carries me in blissful thought to the 

 banks of Asphodel that border the River of Life." 



Clammy Everlasting. Gnaphalium decurrens is also 

 fragrant, and may very easily, at first sight, be mis- 

 taken for its brother, but taking it in hand its white 

 woolly stem is found to be glandular and slightly 

 sticky. 



Leaves acute, a Httle broader than those of the Fra. 

 grant Everlasting, white woolly beneath and sessile, 

 with a base that runs down the stem. Heads a little 



269 



Fragrant Everlasting. 

 Gnaphalium obtusijdlium 



