Sea Pink
Sabbatia stellaris. Gentian Family.
Stem.--Slender; loosely branched. Leaves.--Opposite; oblong to lance-shaped; the upper narrowly linear. Flowers.--Large; deep pure pink to almost white. Calyx.--Usually five-parted; the lobes long and slender Corolla.--Usually five-parted; conspicuously marked with red and yellow in the center. Stamens.--Usually five. Pistil.--One, with two-cleft style. The advancing year has few fairer sights to show us than a salt meadow flushed with these radiant blossoms. They are so abundant, so deep-hued, so delicate! One feels tempted to lie down among the pale grasses and rosy stars in the sunshine of the August morning and drink his fill of their beauty. How often nature tries to the utmost our capacity of appreciation and leaves us still insatiate! At such times it is almost a relief to turn from the mere contemplation of beauty to the study of its structure; it rests our overstrained faculties.
The vivid coloring and conspicuous marking of these flowers indicate that they aim to attract certain members of the insect world. As in the fireweed the pistil of the freshly opened blossom is curved sideways, with its lobes so closed and twisted as to be inaccessible on their stigmatic surfaces to the pollen which the already mature stamens are discharging. When the effete anthers give evidence that they are hors de combat by their withered appearance, the style erects itself and spreads its stigmas. S. angularis is a species which may be found in rich soil inland. Its somewhat heart-shaped, clasping, five-nerved leaves and angled stem serve to identify it.
S. chloroides is a larger and peculiarly beautiful species which borders brackish ponds along the coast. Its corolla is about two inches broad and eight-to twelve-parted.
Many of our readers will be interested in the following information, copied from "Garden and Forest," as to the tradition in Plymouth concerning the scientific name of this genus: " No more beautiful flower grows in New England than the Sabbatia, and at Plymouth, where it is especially profuse and luxuriant on the borders of the ponds so characteristic of that part of eastern Massachusetts, it is held in peculiar affection and, one may almost say, reverence. It is I cally called 'the rose of Plymouth,' and during its brief season of bloom is sold in quantities in the streets of the town and used in the adornment of houses and churches. Its name comes from that of an early botanist, Liberatus Sabbatia; but this well-established truth is totally disregarded by local tradition. Almost every one in Plymouth firmly believes that the title is due to the fact that the Pilgrims of 1620 first saw the flower on a Sabbath day, and, entranced by its masses of pinkich lilac-color, named it for the holy day. Indeed, this belief is so deeply ingrained in the Plymouth mind that we are told, strong objections are made if any other flowers are irreverently mingled with it in church decoration. Yet the legend was invented not more than twenty-five years ago by a man whose identity is still well remembered; and hus it is of even more recent origin than the one, still more universally credited, which says that the Pilgrim Fathers landed upon Plymouth Rock."