334 



Garden and Forest. 



[July io, 1889. 



immense and .so widely scattered over different soils and under 

 dilterent skies — this seems, indeed, a hopeless effort. 



Being hopeless — or secmini;- so to mc — your readers may 

 wonder why I speak of it at all. And yet I have a reason for 

 s])eaking, the reason implied when I said at the outset that a 

 national flower would be a \'aluable possession could we get 

 .one of the right sort. By this I mean that, even if it were per- 

 fectly easy to choose a national flower and bring it into uni- 

 versal use, it would be of next to no value if it were of the 

 wrong sort ; and the fact is important because, of the four 

 flowers thus far "ahead at the polls," only two have any claims 

 to be considered of the right sort. These four are the Golden- 

 rod, which seems beyond all others to be the favorite ; the 

 Mayflower, which comes ne.xt ; the Sunflower, and the Moun- 

 tain Laurel. 



In the many discussions and exhortations which I have read 

 upon the suliject, and in the reports of the preferences of 

 famous individuals, there has been much mention of senti- 

 mental associations as dictating this choice or that, and also of 

 facts of distribution ai\d general familiarit}'. These questions 

 have their importance, of course, but it seems to me that the 

 primary consideration is an artistic one — has regard to theser- 

 viceableness of the proposed form as a type or model for ar- 

 tistic variation. Let me try to explain what I mean by taking 

 each of the four favorites in turn. 



The Golden-rod, in some of its protean shapes, is very 

 widely distrilnited throughout the United States, and familiar 

 enough to be lieloved by all Americans ; and though it grows 

 in otiier countries it does not grow in Europe (unless as intro- 

 duced in gardens), except in the higher parts of Switzerland. 

 It has no associations, therefore, which unfit it to be our na- 

 tional emVjlem ; and it is a good flower to wear on the person 

 as a badge — individual, bright, pliable, graceful and lasting. 



The Mayflower is lilcewise a characteristically American 

 plant, with relatives in Asia but none in Europe. As regards 

 sentiment, it has perhaps a higher claim than any of its rivals. 

 Was not the first Pilgrim ship called the " Mayflower," and 

 does it matter to the short memories of men that the name 

 did not denote our Epigea, but undoubtedly the English 

 Hawthorn ? But the Epigea is a poor flower to wear — charm- 

 ingly pretty when grown or even when massed in a large dish, 

 but ineffective as a little spray — stiff in habit and very perish- 

 able ; and, while it is very familiar in the eastern States, it is 

 unknown " out West," and therefore has but a half-claim to 

 adoption as a national flower. 



The same lack of universality .affects the claims of the 

 Mountain Laurel. From North to South, eastward of Ken- 

 tucky, it is very familiar, but our occidental regions know it 

 not. Yet it is another true American, seen in Europe only 

 in gardens ; and it is a good flower to wear, while its ever- 

 green leaves, with a distinctive character of their own, would 

 be available at all seasons. 



The Sunflower, like the Golden-rod, grows everywhere in 

 our country, varying in different localities, but keeping its 

 essential character throughout ; and it is nowhere a native of 

 the eastern hemisphere. But cultivation in this case has 

 largely undone the favor which Nature did us in making this 

 flower our own. It is so commonly grown in Europe that to- 

 day it can hardly be called a true American. What would 

 the " sesthetes " of England say did we exalt the Sunflower to 

 be national emblem ? And should we not feel like Eng- 

 lish at'sthetes instead of American patriots, did we go about 

 with a Sunflower on our bosoms ? Seriously, whenever an 

 American sees or hears of Golden-rod, Kalmia or Trailing 

 Arbutus he thinks of his own country and of nothing else ; 

 but the case is very different with the Sunflower, and I think 

 the difference seriously invalidates its claim to be adopted as 

 an emblem of the United States. 



Let us look now at the adaptability of these flowers to the 

 designer's purposes. What we want is that it can be used, 

 like the Lilies of France, on everything which man's hands 

 can ornament ; from a coin to a button, from a pennant to a 

 carpet for the White House, from the capital of a column in 

 a public building or the pedestal of a hero's statue to the 

 binding of a copy of the census. 



Of what account, now, is the popular Golden-rod for such 

 purposes as these ? To be rightly used in art a flower must 

 be conventionalized, and to be conventionalized each head or 

 blossom must have individuality and, so to speak, architectonic 

 dignity. The flower of the Golden-rod has no individuality, 

 when we stoop to study it ; isolated from its fellows it looks 

 precisely like numerous other flowers of the vast family of the 

 Compositae. And, moreover, we never do isolate it; the 

 Golden-rod as we think of it is not a flower but a panicle of 

 many minute heads, and to separate them would be to ruin 



the type, even had the heads each a more special character. 

 The character of Golden-rod comes, in short, not from its 

 flowers but from the way they grow ; this loose, irregular way 

 cannot be reproduced in strictly ornamental art ; and a single 

 little head used alone would look no more like Golden-rod 

 than like Aster or Fleabane. Then the foliage of Golden-rod, 

 while it varies very much in different species, is never really 

 beautiful or individual or well adapted to use in the arts. 



The Mayflower is a little better, yet it is by no means a 

 good flower for the artist. It is not strikingly individual ; it 

 is ineffective ; it is weak in form and somewhat trivial ; it lacks 

 the two indispensable qualities — dignity and special character. 



The Sunflower is a cousin of the Golden-rod, and one of 

 its great heads resembles in large the tiny head which we 

 scarcely notice as such in a Solida.go. Bui this increase in 

 size and distinctness makes all the difference in the world as 

 regards use in the arts. A Sunflower is a flower meant to 

 be seen alone, and it is so formal, so massive, so stately that 

 it couldadmirably serve every purpose of the designer. But 

 the same unfortunate fact again confronts us. Modern 

 " sestheticism " has made this flower its own, and so fre- 

 quently reproduced it, with more or less artistic felicity, on a 

 myriad objects of the most trivial sort, that it would seem ab- 

 surd for the American decorator now to seize upon it, and for 

 the American people to try to read into his reproduction any 

 sign of patriotic meaning. Sunflowers on the base of a hero's 

 monument or around the capital of a post-office column — the 

 artistic elTect might be admirable, but the sentimental effect 

 would l)e entirely different from the one we desire. A gen- 

 eration ago we might have made this flower our emblem and 

 rejoiced in its use. I fear it is spoiled for the purpose to-day. 



But something still better is left us in the Kalmia. Here is 

 a plant which neither art nor sentiment has touched as yet, but 

 which seems to have been created for the artist's hand. Its 

 leaves are so like those of the Laurel, which from time imme- 

 morial has been an artist's favorite, tliat its popular name has 

 sprung from likeness ; they are fine in outline, solid in aspect, 

 and beautifully grouped, on the stem, needing but a trilie of 

 arrangement to fit them for the weaver's or the carver's use. 



Still more beautiful, infinitely more individual, is the flower 

 of the Kalmia in every stage of its growth. Look at the coni- 

 cal bud with its deeply-cut, symmetrical flutings, the admirable 

 contrast between the upper and the lower portions, and the ten 

 strong points where they meet ; see how architectonic it is, 

 whether viewed sidewise or foreshortened from the top. Look 

 at the half-expanded blossom, where to these sculpturesque 

 beaufies are added the wide, deep, simple indentations of the 

 lip ; and look at the expanded blossom, a beautiful five- 

 pointed star, with ten radiating stamens running each to its 

 deep little cleft ; and if anything beyond the artistic excellence 

 of the form is asked, examine the artistic beauty of the color- 

 markings. How easy it would be to conventionalize this blos- 

 som, seen from the inside or the outside, and how beautififl 

 it would be, in paint or tissues or carvings, when thus con- 

 ventionalized. Conventionalizing, indeed, is hardly the right 

 word — Nature has done the artist's work in this case ; the 

 flower could be almost literally copied and be systematic and 

 dignified enough. A temple frieze might be made as nobly 

 beautiful with a Kalmia pattern as with the Lotus of the 

 Egyptians or the Honeysuckle of the Greeks, and with far less 

 deviation from actual portraiture. So, too, on woven stuffs it 

 might be as effective, almost, as the Fleur-de-lis of France, and 

 again with much less change — for the Fleur-de-lis has been 

 changed so greatly that we cannot be quite sure whether it 

 really means an Iris, as is generally thought, or some other 

 related flower. Indeed, I can think of no flower which in its 

 various stages offers so many quite admirable types for artistic 

 treatment as the Mountain Laurel. Turn back now to the 

 "Golden-rod and the Mayflower, compare them with the Lotus 

 or the Honeysuckle or the Fleur-de-lis — what must the verdict 

 be ? It is, or should be, a decisive verdict against them both 

 as proper to be chosen for a national emblem. Why did the 

 Violet of the Napoleons never impress itself upon national 

 sentiment like the Valois Lily, and never enter into national 

 art ? Why was the place it should have held' in art taken by 

 the Napoleonic bee ? Simply because it was not suscepfible 

 of artistic treatment. It is pretty, but it has no dignity ; it is 

 gracefvd, but it has no "form " in the arflstic sense, no archi- 

 tectonic, sciflpturesque character. This the Kalmia has. If 

 the fact is not so immediately apparent in its case as in the 

 case of the Lotus or the Iris, it is because the blossom is 

 smaller and few people notice characters which are not boldly 

 thrust upon their eyes. But size means less to the artist 

 than "form," "character," — and no flower in the world has 

 these in greater perfection than the Moimtain Laurel. 



