In Lilac Tide 147 



home. Neltje Blanchan and Mrs. Dana Parsons call 

 Thoroughwort or Boneset tea a "nauseous draught," 

 and I thereby suspect that neither has tasted it. 

 I have many a time, and it has a clear, clean bitter 

 taste, no stronger than any bitter beer or ale. Every 

 year is Boneset gathered in old Narragansett; but 

 swamp edges and meadows that are easy of access 

 have been depleted of the stately growth of saw- 

 edged wrinkled leaves, and the Boneset gatherer 

 must turn to remote brooksides and inaccessible 

 meadows for his harvest. The flat-topped terminal 

 cymes of leaden white blooms are not distinctive as 

 seen from afar, and many flowers of similar appear- 

 ance lure the weary simpler here and there, until at 

 last the welcome sight of the connate perfoliate 

 leaves, surrounding the strong stalk, distinctive of 

 the Boneset, show that his search is rewarded. 



After these bitter draughts of herb tea, we will turn, 

 as do children, to sweets, to our beloved Lilac blooms. 

 The Lilac has ever been a flower welcomed by Eng- 

 lish-speaking folk since it first came to England by 

 the hand of some mariner. It is said that a German 

 traveller named Busbeck brought it from the Orient 

 to the continent in the sixteenth century. I know 

 not when it journeyed to the new world, but long 

 enough ago so that it now grows cheerfully and plen- 

 tifully in all our states of temperate clime and indeed 

 far south. It even grows wild in some localities, 

 though it never looks wild, but plainly shows its 

 escape or exile from some garden. It is specially 

 beloved in New England, and it seems so much 

 more suited in spirit to New England than to 



