Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-26
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

"The outstanding quality Of the lilac
is its domestic character and asSocia-
lions. One would have to be as imper-
vious to sentiment as q rhinoceroS TO
ride through the New England hills and
not find his imagination stirred by the
mementoes OF years gone 6y. a II Is no,
about abandoned farms, but at infre-
quent intervals there are the indubitable
remains of what once were homes.
Sometimes are are timbers standing;
oftener there are only the stones OF
the cellar walls; but always there are
the lusty spreading clumps OF lilac
bushes
year after year, without human
care. they thrive and spread, and with
each returning May they publish to the
| sky and to the quiet roadway the
homely but exquisite beauty Of their
| generous blossoms. Their heavy ira
GRANGE weighs down the evening air. They
tell. more intelligibly than any other
language, the story Of the homes that
once dotted these hills and held the
human ambitions Of living men and
women.
"Those men and women opened farms
now grown up again to trees. They built
roads, now obliterated in the brush
They made houses and lived in them
but the houses and barns and every
other material equipment has vanished
away. Last Of all, as the one touch OF
beauty In their pioneer lives, they plant
ed lilac bushes by the sitting room win
dow.
land now, after q century Of shift
and change, nothing remains Of all their
effort save only that one touch OF
wish for a sweeter and kindlier home
has outlived all the struggle for more
| eeres of tillage and more barns for
crops. ,..,u. ,,... 49,. ~. lac.
| and most durable monument In COM
memoration of the fireside that used
to be. May the reason be perhaps that
they represented precisely the most
essential, spiritual and eternal element
in those long-forgotten homesP"
Alfred Moves, the young English poet
has praised the lilac in his poem be-
| ginning:
GO down to Kew In nlac-time, in
lilac-time, in lilac-time,
Go down to Kew in lilac-time cit isn't
far from London).
| And YOU shall wander hand In hand
with love In Summers wonder
| land;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time Git isn't
far from London)."
The lilac goes by the scientific name
of Syringa, and must not be confused
with the mock-orange, commonly called
syringa.
The word comes to us from the Ara
bian "lilak," through the Persian
"lilaj" meaning "bluish," showing that
the flower was named from its color
The word itself is somehow beautiful.
An English herbalist first described
the shrub, calling it the blue pipe
privet." In old times 1t was sometimes
named the "pipe tree" although just
why we don't know.
Syringa vulgaris Is the old-fashioned
purple lilac which most people think OF
instinctively when they think Of the
bush, and no doubt IL Is the most salts
factory from q general standpoint, espe-
cially on account Of its memory asso-
Citations.
There are many fine hybrids, how
ever, and we have selected the follow
ing named varieties from those given
by Prof. Waugh: Belle de Nancy Gone
of the best, he says) DR.. Bretschneider
Ellen Willmott, Frau Bertha DAM
mann, Ludwig Spaeth. Nine. Lemoine
President Grevy, and vestale.