Wild Flowers

The following is a tiny segment of A Sweet Nosgay, by the sixteenth century poet, Isabella Whitney:

"Good Reader now you tasted have,
    and smelt of all my Flowers:
The which to get some pain I took,
    and travailed many hours.
I must request you spoil them not,
    nor do in pieces tear them:
But if thyself do loathe the scent,
    give others leave to wear them."

Wildflowers are generally enjoyed simply by seeing and smelling of them in the wild. Sometimes they are picked and arranged and are esteemed by the picker in their own "perfect" arrangement. Sometimes they are even given to others. J.M. Barrie said "God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December," but occasionally wildflowers are preserved in some manner so they can be enjoyed later.

The image to the left is what during Isabella Whitney's lifetime was called a nosegay, or bouquet of wild flowers. This image is from a delightful collection of wild flower and wildflower bouquet images by Nancy Heilman. Click here to go to her collection.

Some people are even confused about whether what they see is a flower or a weed since these wild things come in all sorts of colors, shapes and habits.

Consider this completely wild display of "flower like" fungus that graced large tree sections left as a retaining wall made because they were too large to haul away. Such an unlikely occurrence as this motivated a gardener to ask Weed or Flower in his poem by that title.

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