Plum blossom

“ Jasper was the first to speak: "Miss Viola, what is so beautiful as an apple tree in bloom? Our heavenly Father seems to have mixed the elements of nature to make this blossom with a skill not seen elsewhere. It combines the pure whiteness of the plum or cherry with the delicate color of the pink or rose. How beautiful is the shading! How the pink tint improves the white and the white the pink! Every separate blossom is fit to adorn the head of a fairy; and when you look upon this wilderness of bloom, you feel that the floral world can go no farther with its gift of beauty. ”

“ The Plum blossom (Ume no hana) is masculine, but it typifies spiritual strength and beauty. If we translate this into courage, it sounds like a more manly characteristic. Of all the flowers of this flowery land it is the one most often referred to in poetry, one might well say the best loved. With its delicate petals, white as snowflakes, rosy as a child’s cheeks, deep red as a woman’s mouth, it seemed the last flower to place as the foremost of the ‘Four Floral Gentlemen,’ to liken to the sturdy qualities of a man, but as I looked longer I saw the subtle comparison. ”

“ For March there come violets, especially the single blue, which are the earliest; the yellow daffodil, the daisy, the almond tree in blossom, the peach tree in blossom, the cornelian tree in blossom, sweet briar. In April follow the double white violet, the wallflower 7 the stock-gilliflower, the cowslip, flower-de-luces, and lilies of all natures, rosemary-flowers, the tulip, the double piony, the pale daffodil, the French honeysuckle, the cherry tree in blossom, the damascene and plum trees in blossom, the white-thorn in leaf, the lilach-tree. ”

“ These are the supreme moments of the spring, consecrated to the loves of bird and blossom. Every little winged form that scarcely bends the twig has its all-consuming passion, and every tree its wedding of the flower. Out in the orchard the apple-trees are laden in veritable domes of pink-white bloom, as if by the rare spectacle of a rosy fall of snow, and from among the dewy petals the army of bees give forth their low, continuous drone—that sympathetic chord in the universal harmony of spring. ”

“ Their great balls of blossom change from a pale yellow green to bright blue, brighter almost than the sky above, and as they fade, they turn to rosy purple, and back again to a dull green, clinging with ungraceful tenacity to life, as though loth or afraid to die, preferring to rot on their stem rather than drop untimely—unlike the blossoms of spring, ever ready to depart life at the call of nature. ”

“ Blossoms of these, in every variety of hue—​white, blue, and crimson—​well-nigh everywhere adorn the surface of the water; rooted below they project their long stalks and leaves through the apertures, like fishes, in the winter, to catch the air through holes in the ice. Should any one make a grasp at a blossom and fail to make good his hold, it may happen that the entire plant will make an elastic rebound and disappear beneath the grass. ”

“ Certain flowers are now in bloom, but you never find a mourning cloak or a hunter, a question mark or a painted lady fluttering about them. The bees are in the willow blooms and the alder catkins after pollen. The maples are in bloom. You can find hepaticas and violets, chickweed, crocus, snowdrop, and, I dare say, dandelions in blossom, and almost every day some new shrub{147} or shy herb sends perfumed invitation out on the messenger winds. ”

“ The time between winter and winter is very short, and the flowery growth and blossom of a whole year are compressed into two months. Here are dandelions, buttercups, larkspurs, harebells, violets, roses, blue gentian, columbine, painter's brush, and fifty others, blue and yellow predominating; and though their blossoms are stiffened by the cold every morning, they are starring the grass and drooping over the brook long before noon, making the most of their brief lives in the sunshine. ”

“ At first the plume shone, from base to top, with a golden effulgence; but this gradually gave place to that lovely tint which I can only describe as rose dorée, the warm colour momentarily intensifying in tone until it suffused the entire cloud with such a roseate blush that all the hills beneath, and all the fast-darkening plain, blushed in response.
For twenty minutes that glowing plume of softly rounded, feathery cloud stood framed against its wondrous blue-green background, the rosy colour of the cloud deepening as the land beneath it gathered blackness. ”

“ Not only the Catherine plum, chiefly grown for drying, but the delicious Reine Claude, golden hued and splashed with carmine, the Agen plum that’s red and blue, and the Golden Drop, abound in these orchards; for the hardy plum-tree, that will grow anywhere, demands for its perfection a land of wide airy valleys and low-lying southern slopes. ”

“ The plum is the first tree of the year to bloom. It has a dejicate perfume. Though the trunk of the tree grows old it renews its youth and beauty every spring with vigorous fresh branches crowded with buds and blossoms. In old age the tree takes on the shape of a sleeping dragon. ”

“ Whether manifesting itself in the inconspicuous flower upon the tree or in the equally unassuming inflorescence of the vegetable, or unfurling petals of satin or gauze of brilliant hue and marvelous beauty, the blossom is the origin of most that is useful or beautiful in the organic world about us. Strip the world of its blossoms, and the higher forms of life must come to a speedy termination. ”

“ Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring--that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life? Those who know the flower only as it is sold in the city streets, tied with wet, dirty string into tight bunches, withered and forlorn, can have little idea of the joy of finding the pink, pearly blossoms freshly opened among the withered leaves of oak and chestnut, moss and pine needles in which they nestle close to the cold earth in the leafless, windy northern forest. ”

“ I find it difficult to share the almost universal admiration that it awakens when in flower, as its beauty is much marred by the tenacious habit of its dead blossoms, which cling to life to the bitter end, and [129] spoil all the freshness of the newly developed blossoms. The balls of blossom, in shape reminding one of huge guelder roses, start by being a greenish-white, which gradually turns to a deep dull pink, and in death to a most unsightly brown. Astrapæa viscaria attains to the size of a large tree, and in April bears a burden of pink blossoms, also in round balls ”

“ By which we see each bough bend white with fruit,
Each bush with bloom, in snow commemorative.
HOAR-FROST
The frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring,
Year after year, about the forest tossed,
The magic touch of the enchanter, Frost,
Back from the Heaven of the Flow'rs doth bring;
Each branch and bush in silence visiting
With phantom beauty of its blooms long lost:
Each dead weed bends, white-haunted of its ghost,
Each dead flower stands ghostly with blossoming.
This is the wonder-legend Nature tells
To the gray moon and mist a winter's night ”

“ When you came up profusely, one can hardly believe
That blossoms like these, such wee little mites
Could produce in my garden such wonderful sights.
When once you are planted when Spring comes around,
Multiplied by hundreds you’d peep through the ground;
Awaiting the heat, the Sun and the rain
In the sweet early summer to grow lovely again.
You come every year, you make my heart glad
With such beautiful blossoms, how can I be sad?
The humming bird loves you, they come every day
And drink of your nectar, so softly and gay.{8} ”

“ Meanwhile, the earth itself shall suddenly turn to pink, and a close look disclose a tiny, low-growing blossom, sweet as the morning, with the glow of the sunrise in its face; a little bunch of crazy-looking stamens, and tiny snips of petals standing out at all angles, and of all shades on one stem, from white to deep red; the whole no bigger than a gauzy-winged fly, and shaped not unlike one, with a delicious odor that scents the air. ”

“ I mean novelty--the bloom upon the ripe plum, which renders it beautiful to the eye as well as refreshing to the taste--brush away the bloom, the plum is no longer so beautiful, but the taste no less refreshing. ”

“ Tenderly happed and tucked in beneath downy snow to sleep through the long, white winter, they make haste to bloom in the spring without trying to grow tall, though some rise high enough to ripple and wave in the wind, and display masses of color,—yellow, purple, and blue,—so rich that they look like beds of rainbows, and are visible miles and miles away. ”

“ VIOLETS BLOOM IN SPRING.
The violets flower in spring,
And the heath in autumn gray.
Too late to love to-morrow,
If you have not loved to-day.
The world is full of maidens,
Like poppies, blooming free. ”

“ The scent of these blooms, which is the scent of orange blossoms, overpowers all other odors and carries miles on the brisk March winds.
There are other creatures that love the groves as well as I do. The mocking bird loves to pour his full-throated song from the tip of a blooming spray, and when the fervid sun of late March pours the whole world full of a resplendent heat which seems to lose its fierceness in these golden suns of fruit, caught there, concentrated, and built into a living fiber of delectability, he builds his nest in the crotch of some favorite tree. ”

“ Often in our English mornings, the rain-clouds in the dawn form soft level fields, which melt imperceptibly into the blue; or when of less extent, gather into apparent bars, crossing the sheets of broader cloud above; and all these bathed throughout in an unspeakable light of pure rose-color, and purple, and amber, and blue; not shining, but misty-soft; the barred masses, when seen nearer, composed of clusters or tresses of cloud, like floss silk; looking as if each knot were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted rain. No clouds form such skies, none are so tender, various, inimitable. ”

“ Not a scowling, sullen endurance, not a despairing, hand-dropping resignation, but a heart cheerfulness that holds on to every leaf, and twig, and flower, and bravely smiles and keeps green when frozen to the very heart, knowing that the winter is but for a season, and that the sunshine and bird singings shall return, and the last year's dry flower stalk give place to the risen, glorified flower. ”

“ With the return of the sun and lengthening days and the new awakening of life in the spring, a delicate bloom overspreads the landscape, the dark wintry woodlands burst into blossoms and clouds of foliage, taking every tint, from the palest green to delicate amber and red; while the meadows show the rich moist green of new springing grass, embroidered with flowers, yellow, white, and blue; and the blue sky seems to repeat itself in the copses where the hyacinths grow. ”

“ Day after day opens and dies peacefully away like a perfect flower; or, if a strong cold wind drives across the day, it still blows in a heaven of limitless clear blue. But in early spring the sky is often veiled in a floating canopy of grey, or one may watch the white masses of clouds thin and melt on the blue. ”

“ From the tops of omnibuses the first Violets are seen. Anemones have their turn, and Mimosa, and Cowslips, and Roses soon glow in the midst of the traffic, and elegant Carnations in their silver grass, and great piles of Asters. So we may read the year. All through the grey and desolate Winter these flower women hold their own, through cold and rain, and pale Winter sun they keep the day alive with the glowing colours of flowers. I often wonder, as I see them sit there so patiently, if they know the joy they give the passer-by, or if they are more like the rocks on whom flowers grow by nature. ”

“ When the warmth and glow of the sunshine return to us many flowers seem to assume the livery of the sun; flecks and streaks of sunshine gleam at us from hundreds of nooks and corners. The bluebird and the jay come to us decked in the clear blue of the sky, but the spring flowers outbid them a hundred to one in choosing the “class color” of the season. ”

“ Above itself it puts up whitish fingers of flowers, naked on the blue sky. And in the wind these fingers of flowers in the bare blue sky sway, sway with the reeling, roundward motion of tree-tips in a wind. ”

“ Stir marvelous dreams of blossoms red.
Then the sap creeps swift; the bare boughs
⁠bloom;
The violets under the boughs make room.
And because the heron is on the wing,
The earth blooms into the waking spring! ”

“ The fall of tropic light on the crown of a palm is a truly glorious spectacle, the fervid sun-flood breaking upon the glossy leaves in long lance-rays, like mountain water among boulders at the foot of an enthusiastic cataract. But to me there is something more impressive in the fall of light upon these noble, silver pine pillars: it is beaten to the finest dust and shed off in myriads of minute sparkles that seem to radiate from the very heart of the tree as if like rain, falling upon fertile soil, it had been absorbed to reappear in flowers of light. ”

“ I like the reds and blues of the other flowers, too. They seem brighter than ever to-day. Sometimes I sit all day and look at them.”
[143]
“Oh! we have a rainbow this afternoon. It always looks to me like a great garden of flowers stretched in bands across the sky. I like to think that its yellow and red and blue are made up of flowers like these in our garden here.”
“Do you see that colour next to the green? I love it; it is so dark and deep. Many times I have wished we might have a flower on earth just like it.” ”