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 
