Part 1 — THE SEA OR MARSH PINK. (Sabbatia stellaris.)

The Sea or Marsh Pink, or the Rose of Plymouth, as it is frequently called, is a member of the beautiful gentian family. The genus Sabbatia, a name adopted in honor of an Italian botanist, includes about fourteen species, all natives of eastern North America and Mexico.

Our illustration is taken from “Nature’s Garden” and Neltje Blanchan, its author, writes as follows regarding those species of the marsh pinks that are confined to the vicinity of the Atlantic ocean: “Three exquisite members of the Sabbatia tribe keep close to the Atlantic coast in salt meadows and marshes, along the borders of brackish rivers, and very rarely in the sand at the edges of fresh-water ponds a little way inland. From Maine to Florida they range, and less frequently are met along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico so far as Louisiana. How bright and dainty they are! Whole meadows are radiant with their blushing loveliness. Probably if they consented to live far away from the sea, they would lose some of the deep, clear pink from out their lovely petals, since all flowers show a tendency to brighten their colors as they approach the coast.

“The Sea or Marsh Pink, whose graceful alternate branching stem attains a height of two feet only under most favorable conditions, from July to September opens a succession of pink flowers that often fade to white. The yellow eye is bordered with carmine. They measure about one inch across, and are usually solitary at the ends of branches, or else sway on slender peduncles from the axils.”

This plant is frequently called the American Centaury, but it is not the plant of which Pliny wrote these words: “Centaury, it is said, effected a cure for Chiron (the Centaur), on the occasion when, while handling the arms of Hercules, his guest, he let one of his arrows fall upon his foot: hence it is said that by some it is called ‘Chironion.’” Botanists are practically agreed that the plant mentioned by Pliny was a species of the genus Centaurea, so well represented in this country by the bachelor’s-button of our gardens.