Frondescence

A verdancy of fresh fern fronds, wild geraniums, damp moss, green patchouli, vetiver root, early meadowgrass, and tumbling wetland streams. A fern beside the way we went She plucked, and, smiling, held it up, While from her hand the wild, sweet scent I drank as from a cup. O potent witchery of smell! The dust-dry leaves to life return, And she who plucked them owns the spell And lifts her ghostly fern. -- John Greenleaf Whittier Art: At the Waterfall by Henri Rousseau, 1910