Names

A flower of Europe's coasts. It endures salt wind and drought, blooming even on poor, rocky ground.

The genus name Armeria comes from Celtic for “near the sea.” In English it is called sea pink; in Japanese, hama-kanzashi, “beach hairpin,” after its shape.

Light blooms on hard ground.

A fir with a pointed, conical crown that grows in the cold lands of Canada and the northeastern United States. It holds its purple cones upright.

The resin taken from this tree is called Canada balsam. Its refractive index is about 1.52, extremely close to crown glass.

For more than a hundred years, it was used to cement lenses together.

We learned this only after we had named it.

A shrub that grows in colonies on the dry hills of the Mediterranean, living through summer droughts and frequent wildfires.

Each flower opens in the morning and falls the same day. In Japanese it is called gojiaoi.

One of the first plants to return to burnt ground.