The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1885-01-23
"CHRlSTMAS GREENS"

Various reasons have beer assigned
for the custom of welcoming the ami
yersary of our Saviour's birth with
wreaths and branches. Some have
supposed it to have originated in the
fashion of the Greeks and Romans, who
crowned their heroes with laurel and
stre&ed boughs in their way, en-
blematic of joy and victory, and that 1t
is but meet the advent of the Prince OF
Peace, a bloodless conqueror, should
be heralded with these marks of JOY.
Others, again, imagine it was to rep
resent the groves, which were God s
first temples, and the style of the first
Christian churches which were built OF
''wythen wands."
In England every house from the
paNace to the cottage, is decked with
BAY. laurel, holly, ivy and mistletoe in
ali the freshness of perennial verdure.
The practice seems to have been com
menced by the Druids, who about this
time of the year cut the sacred mistle-
toe with golden knife, and distributed
il as gifts to the people; these ancient
priests caused houses to be decorated
with evergreens in December, that the
sylvan spirits might repair to them
and remain unnipped by frost and cold
winds until a milder season had re-
NeTed the foliage of their darling
Modes.
In former ages all the above named
plants were held in superstitious rever-
ence and were believed to be especially
repugnant to evil spirits; as late as the
year 1444 it is said by an old chronicler
that on ''the first of February st.
Panl's steeple in London was fired by
aSreat storm of thunder and lightning,
and with great labour quenched; and
toward the morning of Candlemas day,
at the Leaden Hall in Cornhill,
standard of bay-tree, being set up in
the midst of the pavement fast in the
ground, naile1 full of holm and ivy,
was torn up and cast down by the
'flalignqnt spirit, as was thought, and
the stones of the street were cast into
divers houses, so that the people were
sore aghast at the great tempest"
In those times Christmas sports and
festivities were often kept up during
forty days, terminating at Candlemas,
the second of February.
; With us, of late years, the custom of
"Christmas green's" as they are
quantity termed by old writers, is be-
coming more common, and in the large
cities every house, however poor, is
trimmed with green in honor of Christ
mas, or a tree or branch laden with
bonbons for the children.
n | purpose to call attention to the
plants of our country which have ia
ken the place of the historic cnes of
our mother land and are honored
among us as Christmas greens.
In Maine, the most northeasterly
State of our Union, where the winters
eare long and cold and unpropitious to
the growth of herbaceous evergreens,
the different species of the consfer9, or
pine family, are employed for decora-
ting the churches. Large trees of the
black double spruce (a6ies nigra) and
white single spruce (a5tes Alba, with
the elegant pyramidal-shaped silver,
or balsam fir (abies balsamifera), are
cut in the woods and fastened up IN
the churches, producing truly for
est-like effect, while the odor of the |
last-named tree dif'uses spicy fra
GRANGE, emblematic of the franklin
censc offered by the Magi. In some
localities branches of the hemlock |
spruce (a6ies canadensis) are formed
into wreaths; its delicate, glossy,
green leaf and fary-like cones produ-
eng pleasing effect. In other New
England States, especially near the
large towns, where pine trees cannot
be had for the mere cutting. the varl-
rious species of the lycopodiuni, called
running evergr cen, club moss, etc.,
etc, are in request. These are gath
cred in great quantities by the country
people, who employ the long winter
evenings in tying chem together in
wreaths; the bright vivid green of
these plants contrasts prettily with
the small trees of the white pine pnuS
stro6~S) and hemlock with which they
are intermingled.
In the Middle States, although the
iycopodia are used yet, the glory of
their woods, the American laurel (kak-
MIA fGffoia) forms magniiic, ntly
rich wreath, unsurpassed hy any other.
This shrub belongs to the natural
order of ey1cdcae and was dedicated nv
me great Linnaeus to his pupil, Peter
Kahn, n Swedish botanist who travelled
IN this country more than century
ago. 1t had been previously sent 20
England by John Bartram. Peter Col
llnsin, IN writing to him about it in
1857, ten years before Kalm's visit,
calls it Observation-Disclosures" "bay
laurel and ivy" and pronounccs it
the most elegant shrub that has been
discovered in the province. With
many Others of our compatriots, we
mink this genus might have been ded- s
'oa.eu with propriety to John Bartram, I
;nr earliest American botanist, keep
las MS memory green in monumenti I
" perennial verdure, over the noun t
t a. VI MS own state and throughout c
although the mountain laurel is !
Iounu scattered through the New t
England states, growing plentifnl in $
some localities, yet it never attains the a
NE and beauty it does Cd the Ale v
sheny range in Pennsylvania, and a
southwark. In this section it may be fl
zen in its greatest glory. often form 4