4 Massachusetts Audubon Society 



ago. Thei whiff of lilac perfume that I get in May from the hermit of 

 the woods is that of long vanished home gardens, not only those of the 

 Pilgrims of Plymouth, hut of a thousand generations before that. It 

 carries us back to the England of the cavaliers, of Cromwell and his 

 Ironsides, and on again to Persia and the far East. Perhaps upon the 

 ancestral root from which has descended my hermit plant sat Hafiz when 

 he wrote — fit motto for the pioneer — "On the brow of the young man sits 

 no gem so gracious as enterprise"; or life-loving old Omar Khaygam as 

 he sang, 



And when like her, Saki, you shall pass 

 Among the guests star-scattered on the grass 

 And in, your blissful errand reach the spot 

 Where I made one — turn down an empty glass." 



A thousand dreams and traditions clu>^ter about the lilac. It is 

 fitting that it should remain as a monument to New England homesteaders 

 long years after the pioneers that planted it have passed and no other 

 record of their occupancy remains. No New Englander, however far he 

 has wandered from the ancestral hearthstone, but holds the lilac in loving 

 remembrance. To many such a whiff of lilac perfume brings homesick- 

 ness. It is the odor of the home garden of the race. In the West Indies 

 the lilac is thought to be potent to keep away ghosts, banshees, and all 

 evil spirits. If it is not planted by the doorstone a sprig of it is placed 

 over the door. Surely its beauty and fragrance is a power for good, 

 wherever it may grow. 



Long ago the Indians, keen to note all woodland omens, said that 

 the plantain leaf was the white man's foot print. As Longfellow set it 

 down in Hiawatha: 



"Where so'er they tread, beneath them 

 Springs a flower unknown among us; 

 Springs the White Man's Foot in blossom." 



The plaintain loves the dooryard. Wherever man goes back and 

 forth it follows and sets its foot-print leaves. There it flourishes as long 

 as man and his marks remain, and) for some time after, but it does not 

 remain indefinitely as does the lilac. Let a term of years pass, let the 

 forest move too ruthlessly in upon the abandoned dooryard and the plain- 

 tain disappears. The Indian was right in associating it with the white 

 man. When his footstep has too long departed the plantain goes too. 

 Its power to remain while man does is noted in very ancient literature 

 where it is called by its ancient name of waybroad. In a book of leech- 

 craft of the eleventh century it is thus apostrophised: 



"And thou Waybroad, 

 Mother of worts. 

 Over thee carts creaked, 

 Over thee queen's rode. 

 Over thee brides biidalled, 

 Over thee bulls brf-athed. 

 All these thou withstoodst." 



