The LINNAEA BOREALIS, or two horned Linnaea, though a simple Lapland flower, is interesting to all botanists from its association with the name of the Swedish Sage. It has pretty little bells and is very fragrant. It is a wild, unobtrusive plant and is very averse to the trim lawn and the gay flower-border. This little woodland beauty pines away under too much notice. She prefers neglect, and would rather waste her sweetness on the desert air, than be introduced into the fashionable lists of Florist's flowers. She shrinks from exposure to the sun. A gentleman after walking with Linnaeus on the shores of the lake near Charlottendal on a lovely evening, writes thus "I gathered a small flower and asked if it was the _Linnaea borealis_. 'Nay,' said the philosopher, 'she lives not here, but in the middle of our largest woods. She clings with her little arms to the moss, and seems to resist very gently if you force her from it. She has a complexion like a milkmaid, and ah! she is very, very sweet and agreeable!"
The dear little FORGET-ME-NOT, (_myosotis palustris_)[077] with its eye of blue, is said to have derived its touching appellation from a sentimental German story. Two lovers were walking on the bank of a rapid stream. The lady beheld the flower growing on a little island, and expressed a passionate desire to possess it. He gallantly plunged into the stream and obtained the flower, but exhausted by the force of the tide, he had only sufficient strength left as he neared the shore to fling the flower at the fair one's feet, and exclaim "_Forget-me-not!_" (_Vergiss-mein-nicht_.) He was then carried away by the stream, out of her sight for ever.
The PERIWINKLE (_vinca_ or _pervinca_) has had its due share of poetical distinction. In France the common people call it the Witch's violet. It seems to have suggested to Wordsworth an idea of the consciousness of flowers.
Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The Periwinkle trailed its wreaths, _And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes._
Mr. J.L. Merritt, has some complimentary lines on this flower.
The Periwinkle with its fan-like leaves All nicely levelled, is a lovely flower Whose dark wreath, myrtle like, young Flora weaves; There's none more rare Nor aught more meet to deck a fairy's bower Or grace her hair.