v.).
An imaginary blossom that never fades has been the dream of poets
from Milton's day; but seeing one, who loves it? Our amaranth has
the aspect of an artificial flower - stiff, dry, soulless, quite
in keeping with the decorations on the average farmhouse
mantelpiece. Here it forms the most uncheering of winter
bouquets, or a wreath about flowers made from the lifeless hair
of some dear departed.
In open, rocky places, moist or dry, the CLAMMY EVERLASTING,
SWEET BALSAM, OR WINGED CUDWEED (Gnaphalium decurrens) prefers to
dwell. A wholesome fragrance, usually mingled with that of sweet
fern, pervades its neighborhood. Its yellowish-white little
flower-heads clustered at the top of an erect stem, and its pale
sage-green leaves, densely woolly beneath, the lower ones seeming
to run along the stem, need no further description: every one
knows the common everlasting. Its right to the Greek generic
name, meaning a lock of wool, no one will dispute. From
Pennsylvania and Arizona, north to Nova Scotia and British
Columbia, its amaranthine flowers are displayed from July to
September, the staminate and the pistillate heads on distinct
plants.
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